A justice of the peace in a magistrates’ court, which handles administrative violations and low-level criminal cases, fined the Wikimedia Foundation three million roubles (€29,000) for retaining material on Russian-language Wikipedia pages that violated a law against discrediting Russia’s military and spreading false information about the Ukraine conflict.
The same justice found Apple guilty of failing to delete podcasts and apps with such information and fined the company 400,000 roubles (€3,887), the Interfax news agency reported.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbas republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country.
Following this step, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and several other countries announced sanctions against Russian individuals and legal entities.
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