The European Union is taking additional measures against Russia's fake news industry by sanctioning five new Russian entities and seven individuals. The entities and individuals spoofed Western media and government websites to give fake news a trustworthy look.
The EU says the sanctioned entities and individuals were responsible for "Recent Reliable News", a disinformation campaign that spread propaganda in support of Russia's war against Ukraine. They impersonated authoritative media outlets such as The Guardian, Der Spiegel and Le Monde and used fake social media accounts to spread misleading information.
Sanctions will be imposed on InfoRos, a news site closely linked to the Russian military intelligence service GROe, ANO Dialog, the Institute for the Russian Diaspora, ICT companies, and seven representatives of the five organisations.
The sanctioned individuals will no longer be able to access EU assets or enter the European Union. Europeans are also banned from doing business with them. The complete sanctions list now contains around 1800 entities and individuals.
"With these new listings we are sending a strong signal that we know how they manipulate our information space and how they operate," said EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell. "We are strong in our resolve to prevent, deter and respond effectively with new instruments to these threats," he said.
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