Brussels has imposed restrictions on four additional news outlets as it claims to fight propaganda
The European Council has banned four more media outlets from reporting in the EU over allegations that they spread Russian propaganda.
Prior to Friday’s announcement, Brussels had already barred several Russia-associated media from engaging with audiences in member states since the Ukraine conflict escalated into open hostilities in February 2022. Even sharing content from the targeted organizations is illegal in the bloc.
The new additions to the blacklist announced on Friday include the relatively small Czech-based website Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, a leading Russian news agency, and the veteran newspapers Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
The latter is the official publication of the Russian government, which prints new laws, presidential decrees, and other executive documents to formally announce them to the general public, before they can enter force.
The council has claimed that the crackdown on Russian news is necessary to counter an “systematic, international campaign of media and information manipulation, interference and grave distortion of facts” about the Ukraine conflict.