Yuri Akinshin:"The VGTRK news bureau in Minsk will reopen in the near future. I am confident of this"

Monday, January 27, 2020

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The news bureau of the All-Russia State TV and Radio Company (VGTRK) Rossiya will reopen in Belarussian capital Minsk in the near future, believes a spokesman of the Federal Press and Mass Communications Agency. "The VGTRK news bureau in Minsk will reopen in the near future. I am confident of this", Yuri Akinshin, deputy director of the TV department, told RIA Novosti. This week, all employees of the Belarussian bureau, including the driver, were stripped of accreditation due to biased, in Minsk's opinion, coverage of the opposition's protest action timed to ten years of Alexander Lukashenko's rule. "It is hard for us to judge the factual aspects of the incidents, because we did not see the coverage. But we do not interfere in the situation, being confident in the TV channel's administration, which is entitled to making their policies on their own", said Mr. Akinshin. "But from the political viewpoint, we see closing the bureau as improper. It is hard to imagine relations of such brotherly states as Russia and Belarus without information exchange," added Mr. Akinshin. He considers the current conflict to be "working dispute", saying that similar incidents occurred to the bureaus of NTV and ORT (Channel 1 now) in Minsk, but all of them were settled. "Generally speaking, closing a bureau means narrowing the information flow, which is a wrong decision", said Mr. Akinshin.