Europe Bans Russian State-Backed Channels Russia Today, Sputnik

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Union on Sunday took the unprecedented move of banning Russian state-backed television channels Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik.

“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,” said European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. “So we are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe.”

Von der Leyen said the move was part of a broader plan to ban “Kremlin’s media machine” from Europe. “We are developing tools to ban the toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe.”

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RT and Sputnik are widely seen as mouthpieces of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian government. Broadcasting in multiple languages, the channels have been accused of spreading misinformation and pro-Russian propaganda. On Saturday, Foxtel suspended the broadcast of RT in Australia. In the U.K., RT is under review by media regulator Ofcom.

Europe has ratcheted up its sanctions against Russia in the wake of the country’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday. The European Commission on Saturday said they would join the U.S., Britain, Canada and Japan in banning some Russian banks from the SWIFT financial messaging system, essentially barring them from international transactions. The 27 nations in the European Union have also shut their airspace to Russian airlines. “We are shutting down the EU airspace for Russians,” von der Leyen said. “We are proposing a prohibition on all Russian-owned, Russian-registered or Russian-controlled aircraft. These aircraft will no more be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU.”

The moves follow a threat by Putin on Sunday that was putting his country’s nuclear forces on high alert. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday he had agreed to send a Ukrainian delegation to meet with Russian negotiators to discuss, “without preconditions,” an end to the war.

“I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try so that later not a single citizen of Ukraine has any doubt that I, as president, tried to stop the war, when there was even a small, but still a chance,” Zelensky said, via his official Telegram channel.

Zelensky said the meeting would take place at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border.