15:33,

YEREVAN, MARCH 18, ARMENPRESS. Britain has banned Russian state TV channel RT, saying it was incapable of providing impartial coverage of the war in Ukraine.

UK broadcast media regulator Ofcom said it had been conducting 29 investigations into RT's coverage.

"Freedom of _expression_ is something we guard fiercely in this country, and the bar for action on broadcasters is rightly set very high," Ofcom CEO Melanie Dawes said in a statement. "Following an independent regulatory process, we have today found that RT is not fit and proper to hold a license in the UK. As a result we have revoked RT's UK broadcasting license."

RT deputy editor-in-chief Anna Belkina responded by saying that the “supposedly independent British media regulator has proven itself to be a tool of the government.”

With its decision Ofcom “has shown the UK public, and the regulatory community internationally, that despite a well-constructed facade of independence, it is nothing more than a tool of government, bending to its media-suppressing will,” Belkina said.

“By ignoring RT's completely clean record of four consecutive years and stating purely political reasons tied directly to the situation in Ukraine and yet completely unassociated to RT’s operations, structure, management or editorial output, Ofcom has falsely judged RT to not be 'fit and proper' and in doing so robbed the UK public of access to information,” she added.