The Russian government has been trying to control media coverage of its activities since the 24 February invasion of Ukraine. Independent media websites have been blocked, as have Facebook and Instagram. And now access to Wikipedia is under threat.
Communications regulator Roskomnadzor, which some call the Russian censorship agency, has issued two warnings to the online encyclopaedia over a Russian-language article about the invasion. Its most recent warning said a Wikipedia page contained “unreliable publicly significant materials, as well as other prohibited information” about Russian operations in Ukraine and that Wikipedia could be fined up to four million roubles. As it requested the deletion of five articles about alleged war crimes in Ukraine, Roskomnadzor claimed that Wikipedia had become the source of “a new line of constant attacks on Russians” and that its articles promoted “an exclusively anti-Russian interpretation of events”.
The Belarusian authorities too are doing their bit to push a self-serving narrative as well as the Kremlin line. This was to be expected of Alexander Lukashenka’s regime, which has become Russian president Vladimir Putin’s number one ally.
