They recalled that the Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had previously signed a decree to extend for three years a ban on access to Russian websites and social media platforms.
We are talking about measures taken by Kiev in 2017 in relation to more than 1228 individuals, most of whom are citizens of Russia, as well as 468 Russian Internet resources, social networks and IT companies, including Yandex, Yandex.Ukraine , Mail.ru, VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Kaspersky Lab, Doctor Web, and others.
“Once again, the Ukrainian leadership has demonstrated in practice that it is not going to review discriminatory and illegal policies with regard to Russian media resources,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Diplomats noted that they regard this step “as an act of direct censorship aimed at cleansing the country's information space from alternative points of view”.
“Such actions are a gross violation of such fundamental principles of international law as freedom of expression and equal access to information,” they added.
On May 13, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine extended the validity of the relevant sanctions for three years.