On Wednesday, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Schaefer said the German Foreign Ministry was concerned over the news of fresh sanctions imposed by Ukraine against Russian media. German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that the Ukrainian sanctions correspond to European values.
"The German government… criticized the Ukrainian Government at least for the ban of the Russian social network VKontakte. Of course not without expressing comprehension for the Ukraine’s wish to defeat 'the Russian disinformation campaign.' But nevertheless it seems to me, as if the time of 'carnival license' for Poroshenko’s government comes to an end at least in public statements of German government, because meanwhile it is pretty obvious to German public that nothing has changed regarding the role of oligarchs and corruption in Ukraine," Dehm said.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko approved the decision of the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC) to expand the list of sanctioned Russian individuals and legal entities; the new list includes 1,228 individuals and 468 legal entities. In particular, Ukraine has imposed sanctions on a number of Russian media, popular social networks like VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, Yandex, and Mail.ru services.
According to the lawmaker, Kiev’s sanctions against Russian media and social networks are "a case of censorship."
On Wednesday, the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that democratic development in Ukraine requires that Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko reverse a ban on 19 Russian media outlets, four websites and 13 reporters.
