News agency Rossiya Segodnya’s bank accounts blocked in the UK

Dmitry Kiselyov, the general director of Rossiya Segodnya. Source: Alexei Filippov / RIA Novosti

The bank accounts of the Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya, which are managed by Barclays Bank in the UK, have been blocked, reports the RIA Novosti news agency.

“The account is closed… the bank will send a letter with further details about it,” a Barclays representative told RIA Novosti. He refused to state the official reasons for the freezing of the account.

A RIA Novosti source in banking circles later explained that the British Treasury had added Dmitry Kiselyov, the general director of Rossiya Segodnya, to the list of individuals subject to financial restrictions as part of the Western sanctions imposed on Russia over its role in the Ukraine conflict.

According to the source, the news agency could consequently have become subject to financial restrictions.

The official representative center of Rossiya Segodnya in the UK has yet to receive any formal notification of the freezing of its accounts.

In mid-June the agency’s assets were seized in France and Belgium by order of local courts as part of a move to freeze Russian state assets after Moscow's refusal to follow a 2014 ruling by the international court of arbitration in The Hague ordering Russia to pay up $50 billion in damages to the former shareholders of now-defunct oil company Yukos. Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the Hague court and is calling for the assets to be unfrozen.

First published in Russian by RIA Novosti

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