"We must immediately go to the FSB"

Rosneft requires prohibiting the Reuters news agency in Russia

Rosneft plans to apply to law enforcement agencies with a request to prohibit the activities of the Reuters International Information Agency in Russia. The application appeared on the company's website on April 19. The occasion for him was the publication of the agency, which states that Rosneft supposedly helps Venezuela bypass the sanctions imposed by the United States in January of this year. The Reuters article clarifies that Rosneft, according to journalists, acts as a mediator between the PDVSA state oil and gas company and its clients importing Venezuelan oil. Experts believe that this situation can cause new American sanctions against Russia.

In a statement by Rosneft, the agency’s text was called “Frank Lodge” and “Information Saboteurs”, and Reuters themselves “Pseudo -Agency”. “This structure is systematically engaged in the creation and distribution of targeted misinformation, rumor legalizations in the interests of customers, invents information reasons in order to damage the Russian economy, Russian companies and the Russian state,” the company’s website writes.

A day earlier, on April 18, Reuters, with reference to sources and documents, wrote about the circuit for bypassing American sanctions Venezuela with the help of Rosneft: the PDVSA oil and gas state-owned company, according to the agency journalists, sent invoices of the Russian company, which paid them, leaving themselves a commission. Rosneft at the same time received money from the client PDVSA for the full cost of oil.

In the scheme, according to the agency, the Indian company Reliance Industries Ltd, who bought 390,500 barrels of oil from this year of this year, has bought the Indian company. The financial director of Reliance Industries LTD Srikant Venkatachary confirmed that the company bought Venezuelan oil through Russian and Chinese companies. The representative of the Indian company clarified that PDVSA did not receive profit: the payment allegedly went to the account of the outstanding debt of Venezuela of Russia and China.

One of the Reuters sources said that PDVSA is supplying its Rosneft receivables, some of the money is transferred through the Russian-Venesuel Bank of the Euro-financial Mosnarbank, which has fallen under the US sanctions in March of this year. Earlier, the agency calculated that the Russian government and Rosneft over the past few years invested about $ 17 billion in the Venezuelan economy.

The publication of such information in Rosneft was considered “unlawful activities”, so now Reuters allegedly cannot be considered an information agency and a media. Therefore, according to the company, it should stop functioning in Russia.

There is no legal procedure that allows you to block a foreign media in Russia, in Russian legislation,

explains the director of the Media Protection Center Galina Arapova. A separate text can be blocked - it is impossible to completely ban the activities of a foreign edition in Russia.

“If you don't like the text, file a lawsuit to protect business reputation,” says the lawyer. - If you think that other norms have been violated, our state Duma has provided a very wide range of opportunities to block the publication in Russia for almost anything. But you cannot prohibit complete access to a particular media in the Russian Federation - we do not have such a mechanism.

Rosneft spokeswoman Mikhail Leontyev in a conversation with Business FM said that it is about ensuring state security, so there is no sense in the court-we must immediately go to the FSB.

The use of such categories as state security in such situations is the abuse of the right to appeal to law enforcement officers, behind which are political motives, says Galina Arapova.

“This is not a FSB business at all - to consider media texts that Igor Sichin do not like. I am sure that in the absence of legal mechanisms to ban Reuters in Russia, the FSB will have enough mind to answer that they ask it for the impossible. ”

Recall that in March of this year, the State Duma adopted a law on fake news, prohibiting the spread of obviously inaccurate socially significant information. It allows Roskomnadzor to block media publications in a pre -trial manner - there are still no precedents for the application of the new law. The case of Rosneft also, according to the clarification of lawyers, does not fall under it.

The company, led by Igor Sechin, has not been putting out claims to the media for the first time, but earlier Rosneft filed claims only against Russian publications. Among them were Vedomosti (twice), RBC, Russian Forbes and New Gazeta.