NBC executive denied entry into Russia

American NBCUniversal executive Jeff Shell was denied entry into Russia and detained for several hours yesterday.

Mr Shell, who was travelling to Russia on business, arrived in Moscow late on Tuesday night. He was detained by officers before being forced to sign a document explaining that he was banned from Russia, following which he was escorted onto a flight to Amsterdam.

“An armed guard came and got me at about 5 a.m. and walked me onto the plane and to my seat,” Mr. Shell said in a statement to The New York Times. “He gave my passport to the pilot and said not to give it back to me until I was on Dutch soil. It was quite embarrassing.”

According to the NBC executive, no reason was given for his detainment and subsequent barring from Russian territory.

Mr Shell heads up NBCUniversal’s motion picture unit and serves as the chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an American governmental agency which oversees Voice of America and Radio Free Europe.

Russian state-owned news agency TASS later quoted the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying Mr Shell has been put on a “stop list” for steering anti-Russian propaganda.

This development comes in the wake of a string of diplomatic disputes between Russia and the US, which have resulted in the expulsion of several American and Russian diplomats.

Source: The New York Times and Deadline