London says Moscow seeks to avoid “criticism of the official narrative” on the invasion of Ukraine
Jan. 15 () –
The United Kingdom Intelligence services have stated this Wednesday that Russia is trying to “dissuade independent media” from publishing “criticism of the official narrative” through a battery of fines against “journalists or readers” of portals declared as “undesirable” by the authorities.
Thus, they have highlighted that the independent portal Meduza has reported that Russian courts issued “a significant number” of fines in 2024, most of them against this media itself, against the radio station Radio Libertad, financed by the United States, and the network Dozhd television station, which operates in exile.
“Most of the fines affected authors, editors or commentators who contributed to the publications,” they specified, before stating that “the objective is almost certainly to dissuade independent media from reporting on anything that contradicts or criticize official Russian narratives about the conflict with Ukraine.”
In this sense, they have delved into the fact that “the fines seek to deter and intimidate those people in Russia who interact with independent media and reject narratives controlled by the Government and disseminated by state-controlled media.”
“This activity fits into a pattern of increasing efforts by the Russian Government to control the media and further limit freedom of expression since the start of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022,” they argued, according to a statement published by the British Ministry of Defense through its account on the X social network.
In this way, they have asserted that “the majority of independent Russian media have been closed or forced to move abroad”, while “the Russian Government has implemented and enforced increasingly draconian restrictions on citizens’ ability to access foreign media”.
“It is very likely that Russian efforts to limit independent media will continue throughout the conflict, reflecting the leaders’ growing sensitivity to the inherent potential of the conflict on regime stability,” the British Intelligence services have concluded.
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