A Carlow man has been named as a subject of the latest round of financial sanctions by the British government because of his job with a Russian state broadcaster.
Local man Bryan McDonald has been working as head of the Russian desk for RT or Russia Today’s English language service.
The UK’s Treasury Office Financial Sanctions notice says he’s a member of or associated with destabilising, undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty, or independence of Ukraine
Or it says he’s been obtaining a benefit from or supporting the government of Russia – they had previously sanctioned RT’s parent company at the end of March.
The local man had been a prolific poster on Twitter but his last tweet was on the 25th of February – the day after the invasion of Ukraine – and was about the arrest of anti-war protestors Moscow.
In his last interview on KCLR about his job in 2018 on The Way It Is he described Russia as a ”soft authoritarian state” that had ”a hybrib democracy”.
He also described how he had seen public sentiment in Russia turn completely against the west, and the US in particular during his time living there.
He told Sue Nunn how it had gotten to the oint where hate for America was ”gone right back to the feeling of the cold war”.
