“Between legal action and registration [as a foreign agent], we have chosen the latter,” Simonyan said in a Twitter post on Monday. The channel thus complies with the demands put forward by the US Department of Justice.

Reacting further on the dubious victory by Washington, Simonyan said she “congratulates the US [on its] freedom of speech and all those who still believe in it.” 

In September, the Justice Department demanded that a company supplying services to RT America on US soil should register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). The 1938 legislation was adopted to counter Nazi Germany. Washington threatened to freeze the company’s assets if it failed to comply.

Earlier, Simonyan said that the broadcaster would go to court to prove that Washington’s demands violate US law. “This demand is discriminative, it runs counter to the principles of democracy and the freedom of speech,” she said on November 9.

Russian President Vladimir Putin also recently denounced the US pressure against Russian media. “An attack on our media in the US is an attack on the freedom of speech beyond all doubt,” he said, adding that Russia would come up with a “tit-for-tat” response for such US measures.

Earlier on Monday, the Russian State Duma’s deputy speaker, Pyotr Tolstoy, said that the lower house of the Russian parliament could amend the laws regulating foreign agent status for media outlets as early as on Wednesday. The amendments could allow any media outlet receiving funding from a foreign government or government-affiliated structure that actively works in Russia and interferes in its electoral process to be recognized as a foreign agent.

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