On 6 June 2022, a court in Moscow imposed a 20 million ruble fine on U.S. Congress-financed media corporation RFE/RL. The fine was handed for “not deleting information, access to which is retricted”, according to the court’s decision. RFE/RL’s Russian service wrote that the information in question related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion on 24 February, Russian media are allowed to publish news on the war in Ukraine only according to official information provided by the Russian government and army. Violating these regulations entails fines or criminal cases for “fake news” or “discrediting” the Russian Armed Forces. In 2020-21, RFE/RL accumulated fines totalling 19 million dollars, mainly for refusing to label news published by the outlet as produced by a “foreign agent”.