The Russian Foreign Ministry has ordered the last correspondent who worked for Austrian public radio broadcaster ORF in its Moscow bureau to leave at short notice, ORF said on Wednesday.
Another ORF correspondent was ordered to leave in early June.
Russian authorities justified this move on the grounds that on June 24, Austria refused to renew the residence permit of the head of the Russian state news agency TASS. He was ordered to leave Austria within two weeks.
Revoking the accreditation of the head of the ORF agency was a necessary response to Austria’s actions, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Russian media representatives were discriminated against, the report said.
It added that the journalist could return to work in Russia if Vienna allowed TASS correspondents to work again.
The Austrian Interior Ministry previously said it had made a “negative security assessment” and revoked the accreditation of the Russian correspondents.
ORF said it would seek new accreditations, and that the two correspondents would continue reporting on Russia from Vienna in the meantime.
“We condemn this unjustified and unacceptable step,” the Austrian Foreign Ministry said in response to the Russian move.
The indictment of the Russian chargé d’affaires had been brought in and there were strong protests, the report said.
