Russian lawmakers are expected to discuss a bill that could ban all representatives of U.S. media from entering the lower house of parliament in Moscow.

Olga Savastyanova, a member of the lower house, the State Duma, told Russian media Friday that the action was retaliation after journalists for Russian state-funded TV channel RT were barred from reporting inside the U.S. Capitol building.

“It’s a ban on journalists who represent American media, all American media, visiting the State Duma,” the RIA news agency quoted Savastyanova as saying about the proposed ban in Moscow.

The move is the latest in a series of recent reciprocal regulations on Russian journalists in the United States and American journalists in Russia.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation that empowers the government to designate media outlets receiving funding from abroad as “foreign agents” and impose sanctions against them.

Russian officials called the new legislation a “symmetrical response” to what they describe as U.S. pressure on Russian media. On November 13, RT registered in the United States under a decades-old law called the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

FARA is aimed at promoting transparency, but does not restrict the television network’s operation in the United States, U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman said last week.
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