Russia summons Italian ambassador over journalists reporting from Kursk

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Friday that it had summoned Italy's ambassador in Moscow over what it said was "illegal border crossing" by a team of correspondents from Italian state broadcaster RAI, who reported from Ukrainian-held parts of Russia's Kursk region this week.

In a statement published on its website, the foreign ministry said: "A strong protest was expressed to the ambassador in connection with the actions of the film crew of Italian state television and radio company RAI, which illegally entered the territory of the Russian Federation."

The Italian foreign ministry told Reuters that the ambassador, Cecilia Piccioni, had explained to the Russian authorities that RAI and its news teams "plan their activities in a totally independent and autonomous way."

RAI on Wednesday aired the first foreign media report from the Russian town of Sudzha, which was taken in the opening stages of Ukraine's offensive against Russia last week.

The Italian crew appeared to be working under Ukrainian military escort, and broadcast footage of the war-damaged town.

Earlier on Friday, Baza, a Telegram channel close to Russian law enforcement, reported that the country's interior ministry was planning to open criminal cases against two RAI journalists for illegally crossing the Russian border.

(Writing by Felix Light and Gavin Jones; additional reporting by Crispian Balmer, Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Toby Chopra)