Kremlin ‘partially restricts’ Facebook access in response to US tech giant’s ‘censorship’ of its state media
- Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered a ‘partial’ block on Facebook on Friday
- Officials claimed it was in response to the tech giant’s ‘censorship’ of state media
- Facebook limited the accounts of Kremlin-backed media over Moscow’s invasion
- Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor announced the ‘partial’ block
Vladimir Putin today ordered a ‘partial’ block on Facebook, with Russian officials claiming it was a response to the tech giant’s ‘censorship’ of its state media.
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor announced the move this afternoon, but it is unclear how restrictive the measures will be.
Facebook did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
The move came after Facebook limited the accounts of several Kremlin-backed media over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor announced the move this afternoon, but it is unclear how restrictive the measures will be (stock image)
Russian state communications watchdog Roskomnadzor said Friday it demanded that Facebook lift the restrictions it placed Thursday on state news agency RIA Novosti, state TV channel Zvezda, and pro-Kremlin news sites Lenta.Ru and Gazeta.Ru.
The agency claimed that Facebook didn’t reinstate the media outlets.
The restrictions on the accounts, according to Roskomnadzor, included marking content as unreliable and imposing technical restrictions on the search results to reduce the publications’ audiences on Facebook.
Roskomnadzor said its ‘partial restriction’ on Facebook takes effect on Friday, without clarifying what exactly the move means.
In its official statement, Roskomnadzor cast its action as ‘measures to protect Russian media.’
It said Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the Prosecutor General’s office found Facebook ‘complicit in violation of fundamental human rights and freedoms, as well as the rights and freedoms of Russian nationals’.
It comes after Russians are understood to have been warned by authorities that any ‘negative comments’ about Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine would be treated as ‘treason’.
In its official statement, Roskomnadzor cast its action as ‘measures to protect Russian media’. Pictured: Russian president Vladimir Putin
Makar Zadorozhny, a Moscow actor, published a letter from his theatre’s administration, which warned employees against voicing negative opinions on the conflict, according to The Telegraph.
The letter, which said it had been informed by the culture department, read: ‘Negative comments will be treated as treason.’
It comes after human rights advocates warned of a new wave of repression on dissent in Russia as protests got underway.
‘There will be new (criminal) cases involving subverters, spies, treason, prosecution for antiwar protests, there will be detentions of journalists and bloggers, those who authored critical posts on social media, bans on investigations of the situation in the army and so on,’ prominent human rights advocate Pavel Chikov wrote on Facebook.
‘It is hard to say how big this new wave will be, given that everything has been suppressed already.’
Elsewhere, Boris Johnson announced the ‘largest and most severe package of economic sanctions that Russia has ever seen’ as he seeks to pile pressure on Vladimir Putin and cripple Moscow’s economy.
They will block Aeroflot from landing flights in the UK, and hit more than 100 business and individuals as Britain seeks to cripple Russian banks’ access to London’s financial institutions and curtail oligarchs luxury lifestyles in the capital.
Russia retaliated to the ban on Aeroflot flights landing in the UK by banning British flights to and over Russia.
Britain does not count Russia as one of its major markets when compared to other foreign countries, but the sanctions could affect UK companies which work with firms in the country such as BP.
And a crackdown on Russian companies and billionaires in the UK would remove business from British banks and asset managers, and therefore have a noticeable impact on the UK economy.
In Europe, Ursula von der Leyen said Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine marks the ‘beginning of a new era’ as the European Commission president outlined a package of further EU sanctions against Russia.
Following a late-night European Council meeting on the situation in Ukraine, Ms von der Leyen said the package included financial, energy and technological sanctions aimed to deter Mr Putin from redrawing ‘the map of Europe by force’.
UKRAINE WAR: LATEST
- Russia said it is not willing to negotiate with Ukraine’s government until military operation is over
- Came after Zelensky called for a sit-down with Putin to end the fighting
- Ukraine says Russia has bombed 33 civilian sites in Kyiv in the last 24 hours
- Two children have been reported killed in Kyiv bombing overnight
- Ukraine has banned men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country to conscript them into armed forces
- Zelensky has allowed anyone of any age to join the armed forces, and called on Europeans from other countries to come and join the fight
- Russia is deploying paratroopers to Chernobyl after capturing it yesterday, Moscow said
- Ukraine reported ‘anomalous’ radiation levels at the plant amid fears nuclear storage was breached in fighting, but Moscow said readings are normal
- Russia claims to have destroyed 118 Ukrainian military sites in 30 hours of fighting
- PM Boris Johnson pledged more support is coming to Ukraine in the coming days
- Johnson shared a phone call with Zelensky on Friday morning
She said the European Union agreed to impose sanctions that ‘will have maximum impact on the Russian economy and the political elite’.
Meanwhile, US president Joe Biden yesterday ordered broad new sanctions targeting Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, declaring that leader Vladimir Putin ‘chose this war’ and his country will bear the consequences.
The sanctions target Russian banks, oligarchs and high-tech sectors, Mr Biden said. The United States and its allies will block assets of four large Russian banks – including the country’s two largest, Sberbank and VTB Bank – impose export controls and sanction oligarchs.
Mr Biden also said the US will be deploying additional forces to Germany to bolster Nato after the invasion of Ukraine, which is not a member of the defence organisation. Around 7,000 additional US troops will be sent.
Energy giant Gazprom and 12 other major companies will be barred from raising capital in Western financial markets.
Washington also applied sanctions on Russian banks, and whom it described as ‘corrupt billionaires’ and their families who are close to the Kremlin.
Russia have launched all-out war on Ukraine with missiles and bombs, tanks rolling across the border from Belarus, troops parachuted down on eastern regions and explosions seen across the country after Putin personally gave the order for his forces to attack.
Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said today will be the war’s ‘hardest day’.
Russian forces were sustaining heavy casualties across the country with Ukraine claiming to have killed 2,800 men – as Putin himself made an appeal to Ukrainian forces to turn on their ‘drug-addicted neo-Nazi’ leaders or else lay down their arms and go home.
Ukrainian troops were using armoured vehicles and snowploughs to defend Kyiv and limit movement, and said Russian spies were seeking to infiltrate the city.
A truck was pictured riddled with bullets and bodies scattered around it, with Ukraine saying the men were Russian ‘saboteurs’ dressed in Ukrainian uniforms that it had killed.
Meanwhile Russia’s military said it had seized a strategic airport outside Kyiv in what would be a hammer blow to the defence. It is thought the plan is to use one of the city’s airports to fly in tens of thousands of reinforcements.
Ukrainian forces did not mention an airport being captured, but Zelensky said fighting had restarted around Gostomel – a key airport where battles raged throughout the day on Thursday.
Ukrainian soldiers are pictured forming up across a highway in Kyiv as they prepare to defend the city from Russian attackers, with gunfire and explosions heard in the centre of the capital
Russian soldiers on the amphibious infantry fighting vehicle BMP-2 move towards mainland Ukraine on the road near Armiansk, Crimea
Ukraine claimed to have shot down a Russian jet over the outskirts of Kyiv overnight, with wreckage falling on a house and leaving several people injured
Russia claimed to have already cut the city off from the west – the direction most of those escaping the invasion are heading in – with lines of cars snaking towards the Polish border.
Intense fire broke out on a bridge across the Dnieper River dividing the eastern and western sides of Kyiv, with about 200 Ukrainian forces establishing defensive positions and taking shelter behind their armoured vehicles and later under the bridge.
The Russian troops are thought to have arrived from the north-west, having pushed down from Chernobyl which was captured late yesterday.
More Russian troops and armour are advancing on the capital from Konotop, in the east, having bypassed the city of Chernihiv where they ran into heavy Ukrainian resistance.
Once Kyiv is surrounded, US intelligence believes the plan will be for Russian special forces to move in and seize an airport – likely Sikorsky or Boryspil – which would then be used to fly in a much larger force of up to 10,000 paratroopers who would assault the capital.
The job of the paratroopers would be to enter the city, find Zelensky, his ministers, and parliamentarians, before forcing them to sign a peace deal handing control of the country back to Russia or a Moscow-backed puppet regime – effectively ending the war without Putin’s ground forces needing to complete the difficult and bloody task of seizing and occupying the whole country.
It appears the Russians almost pulled off the plan on the first day of the invasion when 20 attack helicopters landed a crack team of troops at Antonov Airport, 15 miles to the north of Kyiv.
Russian armour is now advancing on Kyiv from the north and east, with US intelligence saying the plan is to besiege the city, capture an airport, and fly in paratroopers who would then attack the capital. The aim would be to capture the government and force them to sign a peace treaty handing control of the country back to Russia or a Russian puppet
A man dressed in camouflage takes a picture of a crater where a Russian rocket landed, destroying part of an apartment block in Kyiv which is now under heavy attack
Russian troops move towards Ukraine on the road near Armiansk, Crimea, in what appears to be the convoy that a citizen later tried to stop as it drove down a highway
But Ukrainian national guard units managed to retake the landing strip overnight after heavy fighting, scattering the surviving Russian attackers into the surrounding countryside.
A Russian attack on the capital would likely be coordinated with a push by troops on southern and eastern fronts – Crimea and Donbass – aimed at pinning down Ukrainian armed forces so they cannot retreat and reinforce the city, officials told author Michael Weiss.
It may also be accompanied by bombing raids and sabotage attacks on power grids and infrastructure to sow panic and force people to flee, snarling up roads and making it difficult for forces already in Kyiv to move around.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with Moscow to hold talks, and with western powers to act faster to cut off Russia’s economy and provide military help.
‘When bombs fall on Kyiv, it happens in Europe, not just in Ukraine,’ he said. ‘When missiles kill our people, they kill all Europeans.’ His whereabouts were kept secret.
He also offered to negotiate on one of Mr Putin’s key demands: that Ukraine declare itself neutral and abandon its ambition of joining Nato.
The Russian president’s spokesman said the Kremlin could consider the idea, but foreign minister Sergey Lavrov suggested it may be too late, saying Mr Zelensky had ‘missed the opportunity’ to discuss a non-aligned status for Ukraine when Mr Putin previously proposed it.
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