EU announces further broadcast bans on multiple Russian media outlets

The European Council has banned three further Russian media outlets from broadcasting to the European Union, as well as the Russian-linked, Kazakhstan-based Voice of Europe, the coucil’s press service announced on Friday.

“The Council today decided to suspend the broadcasting activities in the European Union of Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, which spread and support Russian propaganda and the war of aggression against Ukraine, and also try to destabilise neighbouring states,” the statement said.

Despite being under an EU broadcast ban, the new measures do not prevent the targeted media outlets or their staff from carrying out other journalistic activity such as research and interviews in the EU, the statement added.

“The Russian Federation has engaged in a systematic, international campaign of media and information manipulation, interference and grave distortion of facts in order to justify and support its full-scale aggression against Ukraine, and to enhance its strategy of destabilisation of its neighbouring countries, and of the EU and its member states,” the statement read.

The EU has already imposed sanctions on Russian propaganda outlets including RT, Sputnik, Russia 24 and Channel One, among others, which strictly prohibit them from any type of broadcasting in EU member states.