Russia’s FSB security service has launched an investigation against a CNN reporter for allegedly ‘illegally crossing’ the country’s border to film inside the Kursk region.

“The FSB named the journalist as Nick Paton Walsh, a British citizen who works as CNN’s Chief International Security Correspondent,” Reuters reports.

Two Ukrainian journalists are reportedly under similar investigations.

Per Reuters:

CNN, which on Aug. 16 broadcast a report from Sudzha, a Russian border town currently under Kyiv’s control, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In the CNN broadcast, journalists travelled with a Ukrainian military convoy from Ukraine to Sudzha, where they encountered a nearly deserted town with a few dozen elderly residents remaining.

The FSB said in a statement that Moscow would soon issue an international arrest warrant related to the three journalists’ cases. The maximum punishment for anyone found guilty of illegally crossing the border is five years in jail, it said.

Russia summoned a senior U.S. diplomat in Moscow earlier this week to protest over what it called the “provocative actions” of American journalists reporting from the Kursk region.

“Sudzha, Kursk: Russian residents take shelter as Ukraine advances,” Walsh wrote last week.

WATCH:

From POLITICO:

Ukrainian forces seized more than 1,000 square kilometers of Russian territory in the Kursk region in a surprise offensive earlier this month.

Paton Walsh, CNN’s chief international security correspondent, reported from the Ukraine-controlled Russian town of Sudzha last week, according to a report and video published by the America media outlet.

Last week, the FSB also opened a criminal case against journalists Simone Traini and Stefania Battistini from Italian broadcaster RAI for crossing into Sudzha, it said.

 

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