"We keep asking the French side: you are accusing them of propaganda and so on, [there are] complaints that they are spreading disinformation. Well, great, give us samples, please, make a portfolio of their disinformation examples. In all this time, not a single news story has been passed on to us that would have been equal to disinformation," spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said Thursday at the Baltic Weekend forum.
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The spokeswoman added that all the issues appeared to be linked to the news outlet's efficiency stressing that all the problems started when Sputnik became effective, therefore the French side was "lashing out at something that is effective, as soon as the ability to compete appears, the rules end immediately."
Sputnik Editor-In-Chief Margarita Simonyan said that the two outlets being accused of spreading fake news was in itself fake news, since they did nothing of the kind.
In early September, two think tanks affiliated with French ministries issued a report on information manipulation. The authors suggested, in particular, that the journalists of Sputnik news agency should not be accredited.