In Russia, the fight against information about the "special military operation" to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine, which is officially portrayed as the war in the neighboring country, is becoming increasingly acute.

The Duma, Russia's lower house, passed a draft law on Friday morning that provides for three new criminal offences.

One is directed against the "public dissemination of intentionally false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation".

This carries heavy fines, “corrective work” or imprisonment of up to three years.

Frederick Smith

Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.

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In addition, there are a number of vaguely defined, aggravating factors such as "use of an official position" or motives such as "hate", which increase the sentence to five to ten years in prison, and in the case of "serious consequences of the crime" even to ten to 15 years.

Criminal laws against the spread of “fakes” about the corona virus had already been passed in 2020, and according to media reports, eight Russians have already been convicted.

In such cases, prosecutors have to show that the information given appears to be correct.

The new offense is apparently directed against the dissemination of information about Russian soldiers killed, wounded and captured in Ukraine, as well as about actions by the Russian military in Ukraine.

State television and President Vladimir Putin have dismissed Ukrainian and Western reports on events in the neighboring country as "falsified", "staged" and as an "information campaign".

indications of the great importance

Another new offense is directed against "public acts" intended to "discredit" the use of Russian armed forces to protect state interests, citizens, international law and security.

Penalties range from fines to up to five years in prison.

Anyone who calls for sanctions against Russia, Russian citizens or legal entities should be able to get fines or up to three years in prison.

On Friday, the Federation Council, the upper house, finally approved the bill.

After that, it should be presented to President Vladimir Putin for signature.

An indication of the importance that the leadership attaches to the new penalties is that the Duma amended an old bill that had already been adopted in the first reading before the MPs met for a special session on Friday morning and, according to official information, all 401 present voted in favor at the second and third readings, without a single dissenting vote or abstention.

Since the beginning of the "military special operation", Russian media have been required to use only "official Russian information".

More and more critical media websites are being blocked.

Independent media such as the TV station "TV Doschd" and the news portal "Znak" have stopped working.

The radio station Echo Moskvy, majority owned by Gazprommedia, the media arm of the state-controlled Gazprom concern, was banned from broadcasting and dissolved.

First the journalists continued to work on Friday afternoon and distributed their program via YouTube, but then that too was blocked.

In the past few days, a number of Russian journalists have announced that they will leave the country.