Russia's communications regulator on Wednesday blocked Alphabet's news aggregator Google News, accusing it of allowing access to what it called “fake material” about the country's military operation in Ukraine, Reuters reported, citing the Interfax news agency.
The report said that Roskomnadzor, the regulator, had acted on a request from the office of Russia's prosecutor general.
"The American online news resource in question provided access to numerous publications and materials containing inauthentic and publicly important information about the course of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine," Interfax quoted the regulator as saying.
“We’ve confirmed that some people are having difficulty accessing the Google News app and website in Russia and that this is not due to any technical issues on our end,” Google later said in statement.
The move comes days after a Moscow court banned Facebook and Instagram for what it deemed “extremist activity” in a case against their parent company, Meta.
Earlier this month, Russia's communications regulator blocked Facebook in response to what it said were restrictions of access to Russian media on its platform.
In addition to blocking Facebook and Instagram, Russian authorities also have shut access to foreign media websites, including BBC, the US government-funded Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle and Latvia-based website Meduza.