Ukraine: Russia bans ‘invasion’ and ‘assault’ in media coverage of crisis
- Moscow watchdog accused some media outlets of spreading ‘unreliable socially significant untrue information’ about the shelling of Ukraine by Russia
- They included the country’s top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year
Russia’s communications regulator on Saturday ordered independent media to remove reports describing Moscow’s attack on Ukraine as an “assault, invasion, or declaration of war” or face being blocked and fined.
As Russian forces moved into Kyiv, Moscow’s defence ministry also said that Russian media should stick to the official version of events.
In a statement, the communications watchdog accused a number of independent media outlets of spreading “unreliable socially significant untrue information” about the shelling of Ukrainian cities by the Russian army and civilian deaths.
These included television channel Dozhd and the country’s top independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, whose editor Dmitry Muratov was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year.
Citing a request from the General Prosecutor’s Office, the Russian communications regulator said the media outlets – that also include Echo of Moscow radio – will be blocked unless they remove the “unreliable information”.
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“Roskomnadzor (the Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media) also launched an administrative investigation into the dissemination of unreliable publicly significant information by the above-mentioned media,” the watchdog said.