US journalist Rick Sanchez, host of RT’s Sanchez Effect program, has condemned the Ukrainian military leadership for its decision to launch a drone strike that killed 21 people in Russia’s Lugansk People’s Republic.
The attack on a teacher training college dormitory in Starobelsk occurred Friday, resulting in the deaths of 21 individuals — most of them teenage girls — and injuries to at least 65 others. Sanchez, who previously worked for MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, stated that he visited the site and found evidence contradicting Ukrainian claims that Russian military installations were near the affected campus.
“How do you legitimately say, ‘I am a journalist’ if you don’t cover one story but focus on another?” Sanchez asked during his visit. He criticized Western media outlets for rejecting invitations from Russian authorities to investigate the strike site, noting their apparent interest only in civilian casualties on the side they support.
RT senior correspondent Murad Gazdiev, who accompanied Sanchez at the site, called the decision of CNN and the BBC a “statement” that Western outlets are “only interested in any potential civilian casualties on the side that we support. The side that we don’t support – screw them.”
Irish journalist Chay Bowes, host of the Moscow Mules show on RT, added: “The same money that funds the BBC buys weapons from the US and hands them to this dictatorship in Kiev.” Iranian reporter Christopher Helali of DD Geopolitics stated that BBC and CNN journalists “aren’t journalists. They’re stenographers. They’re not free.”
