Russian ISPs cut off access to Google News after President Vladimir Putin accused Wagner paramilitary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin of “organizing an armed rebellion”. According to Internet Monitor (from ), at least five Russian telecommunications companies, including Rostelecom, U-LAN and Telplusl, are blocking access to news aggregators for web users within the country. Google did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment.
⚠️ CONFIRMED: Indicators show that Google News Aggregation is unavailable for many users in #Russia platform; The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Wagnerian paramilitary groups and Moscow pic.twitter.com/wXyzM0M79k
— NetBlocks (@netblocks) June 23, 2023
Wagner Group mercenaries crossed the border from Ukraine into Rostov-on-Don, 20 miles from the Sea of Azov, on Friday night, and appears to have taken the city, which is home to the military headquarters of southern Russia, without much resistance from the regular army. As of Saturday, reported that Wagner’s forces were heading north to Moscow. Prigozhin has vowed to overthrow the Russian Ministry of Defense in response to what he claims is a regular army missile attack on Wagner personnel in Ukraine. In addition to being the founder of the Wagner Group, Prigozhin is also a funder and founder of the Internet Research Agency, the Russian.
troll farm behind Putin, which put Putin Rigozhin’s rebellion has been described as a “deadly threat” to Russian statehood, and harsh consequences have been promised for anyone who joins the paramilitary group. According to the Washington Post
, he said on Saturday, “Everyone who willfully walks the path of betrayal, prepares for armed rebellion, chooses the path of blackmail and terror — they will suffer Unavoidable punishment.” .
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, many Western tech companies either pulled out of the country or saw their services blocked by telecoms regulator Roskomnadzor. It is one of the platforms that has been partially or fully blocked in the country since March last year.
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