Russian journalist Kulyukhin was removed from Netanyahu's plane before flying to the United States

Russian journalist Nikita Kulyukhin, who holds Israeli citizenship, told Izvestia on February 11 that he had been removed from the plane of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before flying to the United States.

Kulyukhin said that at the moment when he was filming himself against the background of an airplane that was preparing to take off, an employee of the SHABAK, the Israeli security service, approached him. The employee asked to stop filming and go with him. After checking the luggage, which did not contain any dangerous items, the journalist was still not allowed on board.

"A few days ago, I received an invitation for Netanyahu's urgent trip to Washington. <...> A Shabak employee told me that I would not be able to fly on the Israeli Prime Minister's plane because they needed to check my connections," the journalist said.

Kulyukhin added that the head of the Prime Minister's office said that this decision had nothing to do with the administration and had been approved earlier. At the same time, Israeli intelligence officials said that the journalist allegedly posed a threat to the Prime Minister's security.

Adversity of the word: why did the Israeli Foreign Ministry start harassing the Izvestia journalist

The authorities of the Jewish state obstruct Nikita Kulyukhin's work after an inconvenient question to a local politician

On March 6, 2025, it was reported that the Israeli Foreign Ministry had banned journalist Kulyukhin from attending the weekly press conferences of Foreign Minister Gideon Saar. This happened after a reporter asked on March 4 why the Israeli side did not condemn the glorification of Holocaust-era nationalist collaborators in Ukraine.

After that, on March 18, it became known that the journalist was not allowed to attend a briefing for the foreign press, despite the statement by the official representative of the Israeli cabinet, David Menser, that in his country "no one forbids journalists to ask questions." The 9th Russian-language channel admits that the decision of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs not to allow Kulyukhin at the press conference could be due to external pressure.

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