Ukraine blocks access to popular Russian news sites

Ukraine yesterday blocked the websites of several prominent Russian media outlets in its latest round of sanctions against neighbouring Russia which it has accused of spreading propaganda.

Ties between the ex-Soviet countries have deteriorated sharply since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and threw its weight behind armed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine and its Western allies have accused the Kremlin of sending troops and weapons to reinforce the separatists and also say Russia is leveraging media as a propaganda tool to stoke the conflict.

A decree from President Volodymyr Zelensky published Sunday ordered the websites of 12 Russian media organisations to be blocked in Ukraine.

They include the Vedomosti business daily, which was recently taken over by Kremlin-friendly editors, and the Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper, among others.

The decree also ordered the organisations' local bank accounts to be frozen.

The Kremlin criticised the move, describing Ukraine as being on a path towards "strangling freedom of speech" and limiting "unwanted and uncomfortable" information.

Vladimir Soloviev, the head of the Russian Union of Journalists, described the move as the "final cleansing" of Russian media in Ukraine.

But Moskovsky Komsomolets editor-in-chief Pavel Gusev said the decision would not impact on the work of its Ukraine bureau "in any way".

"There are modern ways of bypassing these restrictions, if necessary," he told the Russian news agency, Interfax.