Putin shuts down Ekho Moskvy – Silence one of Russia’s few remaining liberal media

Russia’s Ekho Moskvy radio station went off the air on Tuesday, its editor Alexei Venediktov said, a blow to one of the few remaining liberal media outlets the Kremlin has tolerated so far.

The move came shortly after the Attorney General’s Office demanded that access to Ekho Moskvy and the Internet news channel TV Rain be restricted due to its coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The demand was prompted by “targeted and systematic posting … of information calling for extremist activities, violence and deliberately false information about the actions of Russian forces as part of a special operation” in Ukraine, the prosecutor’s office said.

Russia rejects invasion, says its actions are not designed to seize territory, but to destroy Ukraine’s military capabilities and arrest those it considers dangerous nationalists – a pretext rejected by Ukraine and the West as unfounded propaganda.

Venediktov, one of Russia’s best-known journalists, wrote on his Telegram social media channel: “Ekho Moskvy is closed.”

On his website, which was shut down for a short time but was later accessed again, Ekho Moskvy said the charges against him were baseless and offensive and that he would fight them in court.

Source: Capital

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