The Kremlin-funded news network RT said Monday that its office in the Iranian capital of Tehran was damaged after a U.S.-Israeli strike on a nearby building.
“This building was destroyed. It was close to our office,” RT’s Iran bureau chief Khami Khamedi said in a video standing from a building overlooking the rubble. He also showed damage to the interior of his office.
The network’s English-language website said the staff of RT Arabic was evacuated after the attack. RT Arabic correspondent Rania Qasimi said no one was harmed.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the strike, describing it as a deliberate Western ploy “so that the world doesn’t see the truth.”
The Israeli military said earlier on Monday that it had begun a new “broad strike” in the “heart of Tehran” after vowing to step up attacks on “key elements of the regime.”
Loud explosions were heard in several parts of the Iranian capital, AFP reported, shaking apartment buildings in the center.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had launched missile strikes on Israeli targets, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office and other sites in Tel Aviv, Haifa and east Jerusalem, calling it a “10th wave” of attacks.
Following Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, RT America was taken off the air by U.S. cable and satellite providers, while the European Commission suspended RT and its sister outlet Sputnik across the EU, citing concerns over Kremlin-backed influence campaigns.
President Vladimir Putin has criticized those countries for being “afraid of the truth” and called RT “an effective channel” in promoting Russia’s perspective.
AFP contributed reporting
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