29 UK Journalists, 20 defense officials on blacklist - Russian FM
29 UK journalists and 20 defense officials are no longer allowed to enter Russia after being put on the blacklist.
The Russian Foreign Ministry added 29 UK journalists and 20 defense officials to the new sanctions list, making them ineligible for entry into Russia.
Members from major media outlets, such as The Independent, Sky News, The Times, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, BBC, and The Financial Times, were banned.
The foreign ministry stated that the British journalists included on the list were involved in the dissemination of false and one-sided information about Russia, events in Ukraine, and the Donbass, adding that their assessments contributed to the incitement of Russophobia in British society.
The Russian Foreign Ministry also linked 20 British nationals to the country's defense system, including Minister of State for Defence Procurement Jeremy Quin, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (Minister for Defence People and Veterans) Leo Docherty, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff Adm. Sir Ben Key, Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston, Chief of Joint Operations (CJO) Lt. Gen. Charlie Stickland, and representatives of the defense industry.
It is stated that British citizens working in the defense industry were involved in the decision-making process for the supply of weapons to Ukraine, which are "used by local punishers and Nazi formations to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure."
The ministry said that the work on expanding the Russian "stop list" in relation to UK citizens will continue.
Read next: Russia blacklists 398 US House of Representatives members, including Pelosi
In another context, in March, as part of the campaign of sanctions against Russia after its military operation in Ukraine, Google Europe blocked Youtube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe "effective immediately."
"It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action," a statement by the company read on Twitter.
The European Union will ban Russian media outlets RT and Sputnik, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in late February, accusing the pair of "spreading harmful disinformation."
The European Union will ban what she claimed to be "the Kremlin's media machine," calling the act an "unprecedented" step.
"The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, as well as their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division in our union," she asserted. "We are developing tools to ban toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe," von der Leyen claimed despite the mounting Western propaganda on a wide array of issues all over the world.