A week ago, many of the biggest fronts in the Russia-vs.-the-West information war crossed national borders — Western tech giants restricting Russia’s access to money and audience, and Western governments and cable systems kicking Russian propaganda off their screens.
But in recent days, those battles have become more internal, as the Kremlin works hard to limit what independent information reaches its citizens — indicating increasing uneasiness with public opinion on the invasion of Ukraine.
On Thursday, a committee in the Duma approved an amendment to Russian media law that made it a crime to distribute “fake” news or information about the war in Ukraine — with a story’s “fakeness” determined solely by the Russian authorities. Vladimir Putin signed it into law on Friday, and the effects were immediate. Both Russian and international news organizations either withdrew their reporters from the country, changed how they did their work, or shut down completely.
Here are some of the international outlets who have stopped (or at least said they would stop) their reporting inside Russia because of the law:
But not every news outlets has decided to go that far — instead keeping quiet or making smaller changes in how reporting in Russia is handled.
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