The refusal of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) to give comments to the Russian media group Rossiya Segodnya amid restrictions to media freedom in the European Union means that the organization does not really seek to protect journalists, Sputnik news agency's Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan told Sputnik on Wednesday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, RSF Germany press officer Christoph Dreyer told Sputnik that the board of RSF, an organization claiming to defend press freedom, has decided to no longer give interviews to the Russian media group Rossiya Segodnya after Sputnik contacted RSF for the organization’s comments on the European Parliament's resolution to counter Russian media.

"Reporters Without Borders is no longer pretending they protect journalists around the world and finally admitted that they protect journalists from their little world," Simonyan told Sputnik.

Earlier in the day, the European Parliament voted in favor of a resolution based on the report “EU strategic communication to counteract propaganda against it by third parties”, countering Russian media outlets, such as Sputnik and RT. Authors of the document equate counteracting Russia with the resistance to Daesh terrorist group and call on EU member states to boost financing counter-propaganda projects.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, when commenting on the adoption of the resolution, congratulated RT and Sputnik journalists for effective work and stressed that this resolution indicated apparent degradation of the concept of democracy in the Western society. Putin also expressed hope that common sense would prevail and that there would be no actual restrictions against the Russian media.

Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency is an international media group whose mission is to cover world events in a prompt, balanced, and unbiased manner. Rossiya Segodnya offers alternative views on key events in Russia and elsewhere. Besides Sputnik, the agency operates a number of information resources, including RIA Novosti, RIA Real Estate, Prime, R-Sport, RIA Rating and InoSMI. Rossiya Segodnya boasts the highest citation ranking among Russian media and is building the citation rate of its foreign brands while leading in the Russian blogosphere and social media.