EU Bans Russian State Media Outlets, All Russian Flights

Vehicles of Russian state-controlled broadcaster Russia Today (RT) are seen near the Red Square in central Moscow on June 15, 2018. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

The European Union will shut down the bloc’s airspace to all Russian planes and will ban Russian state media outlets Russia Today and Sputnik, according to the head of the European Commission

The EU will be closed down to Russia-controlled, owned, or registered aircraft, including the “private jets of oligarchs,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday.

At the same time, the EU will suspend “the Kremlin’s media machine in the EU” by banning state-owned Russia Today, Sputnik, and their subsidiaries. Those outlets, she said on Twitter, “will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify” the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

Von der Leyen’s Twitter post also referred to reports in RT and Sputnik as “toxic and harmful disinformation.” Days earlier, the EU sanctioned RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan.

It’s not clear whether the EU will suspend other Russian news outlets such as TASS, Interfax, or Ria Novosti. It’s also unclear whether the suspension will apply to television broadcasts or also the websites operated by RT and Sputnik.

“Third, we will target the other aggressor in this war, Lukashenko’s regime, with a new package of sanctions, hitting their most important sectors,” she continued, referring to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, an ally of Putin. “All these measures come on top of the strong package presented yesterday, agreed by our international partners.”

The decision comes after the EU, United States, and the United Kingdom hit Russia with numerous sanctions, including several top banks. Before von der Leyen’s announcement, several separate European nations announced they would restrict their airspace for Russian planes.

Hours before that, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he ordered that Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces be put on a heightened state of alert, which triggered condemnation from White House officials and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

“I order the defense minister and the chief of the general staff of the Russian armed forces to put the deterrence forces of the Russian army into a special mode of combat service,” Putin said in a televised address. Some U.S. officials said that Russia’s four-day-long invasion does not appear to have gone as planned for the Kremlin, although it’s not clear how many losses either side has taken.

In an apparent response to Putin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Facebook that he would start peace talks with Russia, according to statements published Sunday on social media. Zelensky’s office said that he held a phone conversation with Lukashenko, agreeing to send a delegation to the Ukraine–Belarus border “without preconditions.”

“We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian–Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River,” said Zelensky. Previously, Zelensky had denied Russian proposals for peace talks after Moscow’s invasion started last week.