The United States accused Moscow of cracking down on media in the middle of the Russian war on Ukraine.
“To homethe Kremlin is engaged in a full aggression on media freedom and truth and Moscow’s efforts to mislead and suppress truth of the brutal invasion are intensifying,” said US State Department spokesman Ned Price. in a statement on Wednesday.
Earlier in the week, the bureau of the Russian Prosecutor General asked media Roskomnadzor regulator to restrict access to the website of Kremlin-critical radio station Ekho Moskvy, or Echo of Moscow.
Authorities had previously charged Ekho and other critical media of diffusion false information about russia attack on Ukraine. Moscow officially calls the invasion of Ukraine a “military operation” and banned media from using terms like “attack” Where “invasion.”
the online Dozhd channel was also threatens with being blocked.
“Ekho Moskvy was respected for son impartial treatment of rupture news since its inception 32 years ago and, until yesterday, its broadcasts reached some 1.8 million daily listeners across Russia and beyond,” Price said.
“Dozhd, which has been operating for more of a decade, is also known for high quality reporting,” he said. added.
Price said that Moscow was “also strangling the Twitter, Facebook and Instagram platforms which dozens of millions of Russian citizens matter on for access independent information and opinions and connect with each other and the outside world.”
He also says russian parliament has been set meet in a special session on Friday to “consider a bill that would make reports ‘unofficial’ on Russia is further invasion of Ukraine liable to up at 15 in prison.”
“The people of Russia did not choose this war. (Russian President Vladimir) Putin did it,” Price said, adding that the Russians had the right to know about deaththe suffering and destruction inflicted by their government on the people of Ukraine” as well as “the human costs of this senseless war against themselves soldiers.”
Washington again called on Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine and “stop this bloodshed immediately”.
Ekho Moskvy said on Thursday that he shut down after being taken off air over son coverage of that of Moscow invasion of Ukraine.
” To the majority vote of the Ekho Moskvy board of directors, it was decided to liquidate the radio station Ekho Moskvy and website”, son editor-in- said the leader Alexei Venediktov on Telegram. Venediktov said Russia media Regulator asked Google to remove Ekho Moskvy’s app from son store.
Ekho Mosvky, majority-owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom, was founded in 1990 during the final days of Soviet Union.
He established himself as one of that of the country leading liberal media.
