Russian channels not allowed to report about drone attack on Moscow

Russian television channels have been forbidden from reporting about the UAV attack on the city of Moscow.

Source: The Insider media outlet with reference to several sources from Russian television

Details: The employees of the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (ARSTRBC) from the Russia-24 and Moscow-24 channels, as well as the RBK channel and a few regional channels, have received a message which prohibited reporting of this topic, 15 minutes prior to the 11:00 newscast. At the same time, the 10 o’clock newscast still reported about the UAVs attack.

"We had to urgently change the layout 15 minutes before the broadcast, remove all footage with eyewitnesses and aftermath, even joint street views. We then tried to fill the airtime with whatever we had: some international stories that we wouldn’t even have taken otherwise," one of the sources revealed.

The news story by RBK was the most detailed with a lot of footage, interviews of bystanders, correspondents presenting on site; but everything was eventually removed from the broadcast.

The topic of the UAVs attack was reported only in brief commentary by the Russian Defence Ministry, and Sergey Sobyanin, mayor of Moscow, who promised to help the residents. Regional TV-channels were ordered not to highlight this topic in their newscasts but the detailed reports of the attack remain on the Internet.

However, the channels were allowed to show news pieces about the drone attack on occupied Crimea and demonstrate corresponding footage, which is why a lot of TV-channels began their newscasts with the reports about the attack on Crimea.

Background:

• On the night of 24 July, Russian media and Telegram channels reported that drones attacked the Russian capital, damaging a building next to the Russian Defence Ministry. Another drone hit the Leroy Merlin business centre in Moscow.
• A source of Ukrainska Pravda from the security and defence sector of Ukraine reported that the overnight drone attack on the capital of Russia was a special operation by the Chief Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence. 

• Sergey Aksyonov, the Kremlin-appointed puppet leader of Crimea, reported about a strike on a Russian ammunition storage point in the Dzhankoi district in occupied Crimea.
• Two days earlier, another ammunition storage point was struck in the Krasnohvardiiske district in Crimea, which resulted in detonation. 
• The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia has threatened Ukraine with "harsh measures" in response to recent attacks on Moscow and Russian-occupied Crimea.

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