04/03/2022 (Agence Europe) – On Friday 4 March, the Russian authorities restricted access to the content of the local edition of the British BBC, the German radio and television network Deutsche Welle, the Riga-based independent Russian-language website Meduza, and Radio Svoboda, the Russian branch of the US RFE/RL network. The decision was reportedly made at the request of the public prosecutor’s office on 24 February, according to the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media. While the websites of the latter two media outlets were completely inaccessible on Friday, the content of the BBC and Deutsche Welle was unblocked intermittently. This “limitation” of access, as described by the Russian media regulator, comes as the EU decided on Tuesday 1 March to ban the broadcasting of the Russian state media networks RT and Sputnik (see EUROPE 12901/5). On Friday, access to the Facebook network was also banned in Russia. (TM)