The Russian Government has prohibited internet access to 81 European media, including the Spanish EL PAÍS, the Efe agency, RTVE and The world. The Russian Foreign Ministry has justified this decision by the European veto of three media controlled by the Kremlin in the latest package of sanctions approved by Brussels for the invasion of Ukraine. “In response, restrictions have been introduced on access from the territory of Russia to several European Union media outlets that systematically spread false information about the progress of the special military operation — the offensive launched by the Kremlin against kyiv two years ago and three months—”, said the department headed by Minister Sergei Lavrov.
This ban opens another chapter in one of the struggles surrounding the war in Ukraine, information. Previously, Russia declared the American public media an undesirable organization Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), which even implies prison sentences for granting an interview or sharing its content on social networks. Likewise, Moscow also cut off internet access to the British channel BBC and the German channel Deutsche Welle in response to the ban on Russia Today and other Kremlin media such as Sputnik broadcast in the United Kingdom and the European Union.
The media blocked by the European Union are the state news agency Ria Novosti; the official newspaper of the Government, Rossiyskaya Gazeta; and the newspaper Izvestiatransferred in 2008 by the Kremlin’s gas arm, Gazprom, to the National Media Group, a holding company public-private in which several oligarchs related to Vladimir Putin participate. The president of this platform is the former Olympic gymnast Alina Kabayeva, whom the Russian independent press romantically links to the Russian president.
Russia, for its part, will restrict its population’s access to numerous media outlets from 25 European Union countries, plus a handful of European projects such as Agence Europe and EUobserver. The restrictions affect all types of press, from the German Der Spiegel to Italian The Republic and the maltese Malta Today. France, with several media outlets banned, is one of the countries hardest hit by the Russian response, which includes Le Monde, Le Figaro, Liberation and the France Presse agency.
“Responsibility for this development of events lies solely with the leaders of the European Union and the countries that supported the decision,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “If restrictions on Russian media are lifted, the Russian side will also reconsider its decision regarding the operators of the mentioned media,” he added.
The measure has been announced on the eve of the closed-door trial against the correspondent of The Wall Street Journal in Moscow Evan Gershkovich. The American journalist was detained at the end of March 2023 in the city of Yekaterinburg when he was carrying out a series of reports on the Wagner mercenary group and the Russian military industry. Gershkovich faces up to 20 years in prison, and another Russian-American journalist, Alsou Kurmasheva, is also on trial for failing to accredit herself as a foreign agent.
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Blocked accreditations
Likewise, several correspondents of the now banned European media have already been expelled from Russia over the last year. These are the cases, for example, of Xavier Colás, of The worldand Eva Hartog, from Political. Other reporters have been removed from the country by their own means for security reasons. According to sources familiar with the situation, the processing of new accreditations for journalists between Russia and some European countries also remains blocked due to their mutual blockade.
However, the brunt of the information war continues to be borne by Russian journalists. In addition to the liquidation of all independent media in the country, several Russian reporters working for Western media have been detained in recent months. Among them, three collaborators of the magazine Forbes and the news agencies Associated Press and Reuters.
Despite the media ban, in practice Russians continue to have access to banned websites thanks to the use of VPN (virtual private networks) applications on their devices. The most illustrative example is social networks, such as X, Instagram and Facebook. All three are banned by the Russian federal telecommunications agency, Roskomnadzor. Even the last two platforms mentioned are part of the Meta group, declared an extremist organization by the Kremlin in 2022. However, official government accounts and many members of the elite continue to use these communication channels.
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