Russia opens investigation into the BBC’s operations

Roskomnadzor, the Russian regulator, said it conducts investigative measures against the BBC World News channel distributed in the territory of the Russian Federation. Other BBC’s operations such as resources on the internet will also be investigated if they produced are compliant with Russian legislation, FT reported.

After the British media regulator Ofcom found the Russian news agency RT guilty of “a serious failure” of impartiality for its coverage following the Salisbury attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal, Russia acted symmetrically. All the BBC’s operations are under investigation by Roskomnadzor now. Of course, both cases are connected, confirmed the Russian regulator.

Margarita Simonyan, the head of Kremlin-backed network RT, tweeted: “One must assume they’ll search for an alternative point of view on the BBC. With a microscope.”

The informational wars are common in the 21st century, however, such measures bring a lot of mess into the TV and internet. Moreover, investigations cost huge amounts, warned the media experts. For Ofcom, it will be rather hard to prove that RT had breached impartiality rules, the same regards to the Roskomnadzor, which began an investigation of BBC’s operation in Russia on Thursday.