Russia Ukraine Crisis: Russia backs jail time for 'fake' army news, restricts media

Russian lawmakers moved Friday to impose harshjailterms for publishing "fakenews" about thearmy, which a senior lawmaker said will apply to foreigners too, as Moscow moves to muffle dissent over itsinvasion of Ukraine.

The new legislation sets outjailterms of varying lengths and fines against people who publish "knowingly false information" about the military.

"If the fakes led to serious consequences, (the legislation) threatens imprisonment of up to 15 years," the lower house of parliament said in a statement.

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Speaking at the session, the head of the head of the parliament's information committee Alexander Khinshtein said the law "concerns all citizens, not only Russian ones, because we are talking about actions againstRussia."

Amendments were also passed to fine orjailpeople calling for sanctions againstRussiawithjailterms.

The past year has seen an unprecedented crackdown on independent and critical voices inRussiathat has intensified since the invasion.

The chairman of parliament Vyacheslav Volodin railed against foreign socialmediaafter Facebook was briefly inaccessible inRussiaon Friday.

"All these IT companies beginning with Instagram, and ending with the others, are based in the United States of America. It is clear they are used as weapons. They carry hatred and lies. We need to oppose this," he said.

Russia'smediawatchdog said Friday it hadrestricted access to the BBC and other independentmediawebsites, further tightening controls over the internet.

Foreignmediarestricted

The independentnewswebsite Meduza, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and the Russian-language website of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Svoboda, were "limited," said Roskomnadzor, following a request from prosecutors.

Roskomnadzor said in each case, the request was filed on February 24, the day Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his attack on Ukraine.

Valery Fadeyev, the head of the Kremlin's human rights council accused Westernmediaof being behind "a huge flow of false information that comes from Ukraine" and saidthe council had set up a project to stop it.

In another attack on critical voices, Russian police on Friday were carrying out searches at the office of the country's most prominent rights group, Memorial, which was ordered to close late last year, sparking international outcry.

Russia's invasion has already claimed hundreds of lives, displaced more than a million people and spurred allegations of war crimes.

Western-led sanctions levelled againstRussiain retaliation have sent the ruble into free-fall forcing the central bank to impose a 30-percent tax on sales of hard currency after a run on lenders.

State-medianarratives

Moscow has few economic tools with which to respond but the Duma, or lower house, on Friday adopted a bill that would freeze any assets insideRussiaof foreigners "violating rights of Russians".

Russianmediahave been instructed to publish only information provided by official sources, which describe the invasion as a military operation.

State-controlled broadcasters have meanwhile reinforced government narratives about nationalism in Ukraine and Moscow's claim that Ukrainian soldiers are using civilians as human shields.

For the moment, it appears the invasion has marked the beginning of the end for what remains ofRussia's independentmedia.

Ekho Mosvky -- a liberal-leaning radio station majority-owned byRussia's energy giant Gazprom -- said Thursday it would shut down after being taken off air over its Ukraine war coverage.

Authorities had on Monday blocked the Ekho website and took the station off air as punishment for spreading "deliberately false information" about the conflict.

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Another independent outlet, Znak, said Friday it was ceasing work "due to the large number of restrictions that have recently appeared for the work of themediainRussia".

The BBC said this week that the audience of its Russian languagenewswebsite had "more than tripled...with a record reach of 10.7 million people in the last week".

In a Friday response to the blocking, a BBC spokesperson said the company will "continue our efforts to make BBCNewsavailable inRussia, and across the rest of the world" despite the restrictions.