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fullscreen chevron-rightnästaVera Jourová is the EU’s evaluation and transparency commissioner. Archive image.
1 / 2Photo: John Thys/AP/TT
The EU will impose punitive sanctions against several Russian media and pro-Russian news services, according to EU Commissioner Vera Jourová.
The controversial site Voice of Europe is among those singled out to be part of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chain of command.
– The sanctions list will include Voice of Europe as one of the so-called media companies. We do not recognize them as media, they are simply Putin’s propaganda tools, Jourová said on Czech television on Sunday, Bloomberg reports.
Czech Jourová, the EU’s evaluation and transparency commissioner, says that three other actors will also be put on the list in the EU’s upcoming sanctions package.
It concerns the Russian government publication Rossijskaja Gazeta, the state news agency Ria Novosti and the Kremlin-loyal newspaper Izvestia.
The Czech Republic has, following an investigation carried out by the country’s intelligence service, already blacklisted Voice of Europe for spreading Russian disinformation.
The news service is said to be funded by pro-Moscow Ukrainian oligarch Viktor Medvedtyuk. Several members of the EU Parliament on the extreme right have appeared in Voice of Europe with criticism of the EU’s and Ukraine’s stance in the conflict. However, all have denied that they did it for money.
In April, Belgian prosecutors opened a formal investigation into allegations that EU members of parliament were paid by Russia to promote Russian interests.
