Russians looking to get a different perspective on the Ukraine crisis will essentially have to settle for whatever story Vladimir Putin tells them — the Kremlin banned four opposition websites on Thursday.
Russia’s communications agency has banned Grani.ru, Kasparov.ru, the online site for “Yezhednevny zhurnal” (“Daily Journal”), and prominent opposition leader Aleksei Navalny’s website, Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty reported.
The move comes on the same day that U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry warned Russia that “there will be costs” if Moscow continues to escalate the crisis in Ukraine.
Former world chess champion and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov, whose website was taken down within Russia, tweeted: “Obviously Putin is preparing something drastic if he’s blacking out the last sources of truth in Russia. I fear for the safety of Ukraine.”
He added that the sudden censorship could possibly be a ruse because “Putin plays many games [and] always raises the stakes when possible. [The] West is easily bluffed, he finds. […] Good luck getting other countries to give up their nukes or nuclear programs now, with UK/US security guarantees to Ukraine in the trash.”
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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