The White House has condemned President Vladimir Putin’s “assault on media freedom and the truth” as police officers stormed the offices of an independent TV station in Russia that has been critical of the Kremlin.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in Thursday’s press briefing that the US is “deeply concerned” by Russia’s attempts to silence sources of independent journalism in Russia that have refused to tow Mr Putin’s official – and false – line around its attack on Ukraine.
“We have seen that and we are deeply concerned,” said Ms Psaki.
“The Kremlin right now is engaged in a full assault on media freedom and the truth.”
Ms Psaki pointed to a series of “severe steps” that Russia has taken to stop the truth about the invasion from reaching the Russian people.
Independent media sites have been thrown off the air and the government is now threatening journalists with prison time if they engage in “unofficial” reporting of the war, she said.
Journalists have also been banned from using terms such as “invasion” or “attack” or from using non-government sources of information to report on what is happening, she said.
“Today independent media sites such as Ekho Moskvy radio and TV Rain are off the air - they kicked them off the air and threatened to block online platforms such as VOA Russian,” said Ms Psaki.
“We have seen Russia prohibit Russian media from referring to what they are doing in Ukraine as ‘a war’ or ‘an invasion’ or ‘an attack’. They are banning the use of terms even.
“Allowing media to use only government-sourced information to report on the war.
“They have 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.”
The press secretary warned that Russia is also trying to silence free speech by arresting people protesting against the war and shutting down social media platforms.
“They have arrested more than 7,300 protesters – some immediately after they began to protest Putin’s war of choice,” she said.
“They have blocked and shut down social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and they have limited the amount of dollars thats citizens can take out of the country.”
She added: “What they are trying to do is to block any information about that they are trying to invade a sovereign country and they are taking severe steps to do exactly that.”
Her comments came as Dozhd TV (translated as TV Rain) tweeted on Thursday that Russian police officers had turned up at its offices and warned the outlet to stop “spreading extremist materials”, hours after some staff fled the country in fear for their lives.
“Two policemen came to Rain’s office, one of them in civilian clothes. They are waiting for the arrival of a lawyer,” the outlet tweeted.
“The police brought two warnings about the inadmissibility of spreading extremist materials through the media.
“The warning contains the address of the You-Tube channel of the Rain. Specific materials are not specified. According to preliminary data, this means a demand to remove Rain’s YouTube channel.”
Dozhd TV is Russia’s only independent TV channel and has continued to be critical of Moscow and the attack on Ukraine in spite of the Kremlin’s efforts at censorship.
On Tuesday, Russia’s prosecutor general’s office ordered that Dozhd TV and liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy be shut down, accusing the two outlets of spreading “deliberately false information” about Russia’s assault on Ukraine and sharing “information calling for extremist activity, violence”.
Both websites appeared to have been taken down in Russia soon after the announcement.
Dozhd TV tweeted on Tuesday that it would continue to report information through its social media channels including Telegram, VKontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki and Instagram.
The following day its Editor-in-Chief Tikhon Dzyadko announced on Telegram that he and his family, along with the TV station’s editorial staff, had fled from Russia.
“After the blocking of Dozhd’s website, Dozhd’s social media accounts, and the threat against some employees, it is obvious that the personal safety of some of us is at risk,” he said.
In the week since Mr Putin sent Russian forces to attack Ukraine, he has increasingly sought to try to control the narrative and censor news coverage revealing the truth of the invasion from reaching the citizens of Russia.
Within hours of declaring war on Ukraine, Russian officials threatened to shut down independent media if the outlets did not tow the Kremlin’s official line about the attack.
Soon after, the website for Current Time – a Russian TV channel launched by the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that was critical of Mr Putin – went offline, followed by the blocking of Dozhd TV and Ekho Moskvy.
Russian state-owned media has pushed out Mr Putin’s propaganda that he is carrying out a “special military operation” to “denazify” and “liberate” Ukraine.
In a televised speech to the nation on Thursday, he claimed that Ukrainian forces were using civilians as human shields and behaving like Nazis during World War Two.
He also claimed that his “special military operation” was going “to plan”.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian and Western media has revealed a vastly different picture, with civilians increasingly targeted and killed in Russian attacks in recent days.
US, UK and officials have said that Mr Putin’s invasion has not gone to plan with several reports of troops facing logistical issues and efforts to invade the capital of Kyiv “stalling”.
