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BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford
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The Russian ambassador in London has announced the return of recently expelled BBC correspondent Sarah Rainsford should Russian journalists receive visas for Great Britain in return. "This step was taken because our journalists are being treated very badly here," Andrei Kelin justified Rainsford's expulsion in a BBC interview on Sunday. Russian journalists are being sent back from London a year early, Kelin said. He added: "We expect this situation to change".
Rainsford has been informed that she will be able to return as soon as a correspondent for the Tass state agency receives a visa, Kelin said.
Regarding the allegation made by authorities against Rainsford that she had shown hostile behavior towards Russia, the diplomat said: "In general, what is written in Britain in newspapers and the press about Russia is very bad, I would say."
Long-time BBC Russia correspondent Rainsford reported in August that her visa would not be renewed and that she would be expelled from the country.
"I was told I could never go back," she said at the time.
In support of this, she was told that she posed a risk to the national security of the country.
The move was interpreted as a response by the Russian authorities to the UK's refusal to grant a license to the Russian state broadcaster RT.
The BBC condemned the decision as an attack on freedom of the press and noted an increasingly hostile atmosphere towards foreign journalists in the country.
Relations between Britain and Russia have been strained for years.
London accuses the Kremlin, among other things, of being behind the poison attack on former Russian double agent Sergej Skripal in Salisbury, England in 2018.
RT is the Kremlin's propaganda station and therefore has problems in other European countries as well: Luxembourg is also refusing the station a license, there are restrictions in Germany and YouTube has banned the German channel because it violated community guidelines and, among other things, incorrect information about the corona crisis spread.
Research by SPIEGEL also shows that with RT DE Moscow wants to destabilize democracy in Germany.
Löw / dpa
