Ukraine blocks Russia’s top social media networks

KIEV: Ukraine on Tuesday blocked Russia’s most popular social media networks and an Internet search engine in response to the Kremlin’s alleged backing of a three-year separatist war in the east.

The decision sparked an immediate outcry from Ukrainian Internet users and the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) press freedom group.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s decision “another manifestation of unfriendly, shortsighted policy toward Russia”.

Some critics in Kiev further pointed out that Poroshenko himself was an avid user of two of the Russian networks he had banned.

The presidential decree bars access to VK — often referred to as Russia’s Facebook and formerly known as VKontakte — and Ukraine’s version of the popular Yandex search engine.

The decision also covers the Mail.ru email provider and the Odnoklassniki (Classmates) social network.

A separate safety provision applies to the Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab and DrWeb cyber security and antivirus firms. The ban remains in effect for three years.

Several social media users pointed to the irony of Poroshenko having his own VK and Odnoklassniki accounts that he last updated when Kiev staged the Eurovision Song Contest final on Saturday night.

A January 2016 ranking conducted by the Kiev-based Genius business consulting company placed VK and Mail.ru as the second and third most popular Ukrainian websites after Google. Mail.ru said on Tuesday that it had noticed a substantial spike in Ukrainians’ use of the social media blacklisted by Poroshenko.

“We are certain that the Internet knows no border,” it said in a statement.

Kiev has been gradually expanding its list of outlawed Russian products and people barred for entering country for either voicing support of Kremlin’s March 2014 annexation of Crimea or the self-proclaimed independence of Ukraine’s east.