Moscow tightens the screw. On Friday March 4, Russia introduced heavy criminal penalties for the distribution of“false information about the army”the final illustration of the interior twist that accompanies the invasion of Ukraine.
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The Lower House of Parliament (Duma) unanimously adopted an amendment which provides for various penalties of up to fifteen years in prison for the dissemination of information aimed at “discredit” the armed forces.
A separate amendment, also adopted on Friday, also provides for sanctions for “calls to impose sanctions on Russia”a country facing harsh Western retaliatory measures for its invasion of Ukraine.
These texts, which apply to both the media and individuals, must be approved by the upper house on Friday. They allow the authorities to strengthen their arsenal in the information war they are waging in parallel with the war in Ukraine.
In order to control the story they give of this conflict to the Russian population, the authorities have also increased the pressure on the few independent media which have managed to work in recent years despite a hostile climate.
The media regulator Roskomnadzor has thus announced that it has restricted access to the sites of the Russian-language editions of the BBC and the German international radio and television station Deutsche Welle (DW), the independent site Meduza and Radio Svoboda, the Russian branch of RFE/RL. .
The day before, the emblematic radio station Ekho Moskvy (Echo of Moscow) had announced its dissolution and the independent television channel Dojd the suspension of its activity, after the blocking of their sites.
In addition, according to the NGO OVD-Info, more than 8,000 people have been arrested in Russia for having demonstrated, in particular in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, against the invasion of Ukraine since February 24, the day it was launched. .
If this all-out repression first affects the Russians, voices also attack foreign organizations.
Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin attacked American social networks on Friday, saying they were “used as weapons” to propagate “hate and lies”. “We must oppose it”he said.
Valéri Fadeev, chairman of the Kremlin Human Rights Council, also accused foreign media of spreading false information about the conflict in Ukraine. “We have launched a project (…) to counter the enormous amount of false information that emanates from Ukraine and Western countries”did he declare.