The leader of the Russian parliament has accused the European Union of censorship and violating freedom of the press and opinion following the EU’s decision to ban several Russian media outlets.
Vyacheslav Volodin, a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said on Saturday that the European Union took this step because it has no arguments to convince its own citizens and has therefore blocked alternative positions, according to him. He made his comments on Telegram.
Volodin accused the West, which repeatedly complains about censorship in Russia, of double standards.
In Russia, many media channels that report critically on Putin’s policies are blocked and thousands of websites are blocked.
On Friday, EU member states imposed sanctions on the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti, the government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the Voice of Europe (VoE) platform and the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia, which also owns a television station.
VoE was targeted for alleged involvement in spreading pro-Russian propaganda. The four media outlets are banned from distributing their content across the EU due to their support for the large-scale invasion of Ukraine.
However, the punitive measures will not stop the outlets’ staff from carrying out their work, such as interviews and research, an EU statement said.
Russia said it will respond to the EU’s action. In a previous incident, German foreign broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) was stopped from broadcasting in Russia. DW had to close its Moscow office and its journalists had to leave the country.
This was a response to a broadcasting ban by the Russian state broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today).
Since Russia launched its large-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine more than two years ago, EU countries have revoked the licenses of a number of media outlets. The aim is to prevent Russian war propaganda and disinformation from being spread in the EU.
