White House press secretary Jen Psaki criticized actions taken by the Russian government to censor media outlets opposing President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
“We have seen that and are deeply concerned,” she told reporters at Thursday’s White House press briefing. “The Kremlin right now is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth.”
Psaki said the Kremlin has removed a number of independent radio and television stations from broadcast airwaves, “threatened” to block Voice of America Russia (which is funded by the United States) from being accessed by Russian IP addresses, and shut down access to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Furthermore, the Kremlin has arrested more than 7,000 Russian protesters opposing Putin’s “war of choice.”
“We’ve seen Russia prohibit Russian media from referring to what they’re doing in Ukraine as ‘a war’ or ‘an invasion’ and ‘attack,'” she continued. “Allowing media to use only government source information to report on the war. They’ve called a special session of the parliament to consider a bill to make unofficial reporting on Russia’s further invasion punishable by up to 15 years in prison.”
“What they are trying to do is block any information about what they are doing to invade a sovereign country, and they’re taking severe steps to do exactly that,” Psaki said.
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You can watch Thursday’s briefing in full below.
