Ukraine has ordered the blocking of several Russian news sites including the business daily Vedomosti as part of a new round of sanctions against the neighboring country, sparking protests on Monday (August 23) in Russia.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky imposed these sanctions by decree published on Sunday, validating a decision to this effect by the National Security Council. The new sanctions target a dozen Russian groups including the publisher of Vedomosti, long a benchmark title in Russia before being taken over by Kremlin worshipers and the popular daily Moskovsky Komsomolets. No explanation was provided on the choice of companies targeted by these measures which also affected several sites linked to pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The head of the Union of Russian Journalists Vladimir Soloviev, quoted by the Ria Novosti news agency, on Monday denounced the decision as a violation of freedom of expression and the “
cleansing
” of Russian media in Ukraine.
The editor-in-chief of Moskovski Komsomolets Pavel Goussev for his part indicated that these sanctions will have "
no
" impact on the functioning of his daily newspaper, according to Russian media.
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Relations between Ukraine and Russia are at their lowest since Moscow's 2014 annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula, followed by the outbreak of war with pro-Russian separatists of whom the Kremlin is widely seen as the military godfather . The two countries have since imposed numerous mutual sanctions. A final round of Russian sanctions introduced on Friday targeted the head of Ukrainian diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba and the secretary of the Security Council Oleksy Danilov.