ZMINA website blocked in Russia

Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) blocked the website of ZMINA online media outlet in the Russian Federation.

According to the Roskomsvoboda project data, the site was added to the register of prohibited outlets by the decision of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia on April 27, and the site was first blocked on the same day.

ZMINA sources in the temporarily occupied Crimea confirm the lack of access to the website.

The outlet’s editorial office did not receive any warnings or notifications from Roskomnadzor about the blockade, so it is unknown what publications became the reason for banning the website.

ZMINA publishes articles and news related to human rights, legal advice and instructions, in particular for residents of the occupied territories. With the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, publications also focus on international crimes, including war crimes, committed by the Russian service members and the Russian leadership.

“In March, we launched a function of Ukrainian-Russian translation of our content. It is well known that neither the Russian media nor the outlets in the occupied territories can provide true information about the war, in particular about the enormous number of human rights violations committed by Russia. For the two months of the war, the number of our site visitors from Russia has increased more than fourfold. Most of them read content with testimonies of Russian POWs and the information on how to find Russian service members fallen in Ukraine,” says Olha Padiriakova, the website’s editor-in-chief.

She adds that she learned about the blockage after the figures of audience from Russia and the occupied territories began to decline.

As a reminder, with the beginning of the full-scale war, Russia regularly blocks Ukrainian websites and international media outlets that publish the truth about the war.