Russia’s lower parliamentary chamber has unanimously voted to pass a bill that allows the government to register international media outlets as “foreign agents”—just days after the United States demanded the same thing from Russian state-funded television channel RT. The upper house is expected to approve the bill and then pass it on to President Vladimir Putin to be signed within the next two weeks. Putin described the U.S. categorization of RT as an attack on freedom of speech. He warned at the time that Russia would retaliate. On Wednesday, Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin referred to the bill as a “symmetrical answer” to the U.S.
