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German foreign ministry concerned over Ukrainian sanctions against Russia

BERLIN, May 17. /TASS/. Germany’s Foreign Ministry was concerned to learn about Ukraine introducing sanctions against Russian companies, Ministry Spokesman Martin Schaefer said at a briefing on Wednesday.

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Council of Europe chief alarmed at Kiev's decision to block Russian social networks

"We were concerned to learn about the new sanctions introduced by the Ukrainian president, government and the National Security and Defense Council," Schaefer said. "Many things related to the media make us think about freedom of the press," he added.

German Government Spokesman Steffen Seibert, in turn, said that this issue would be discussed at the upcoming meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko, scheduled to be held in Germany on May 20.

On May 16, Poroshenko signed an expanded blacklist consisting of 1,228 Russian individuals and 468 companies. This time, a number of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) members, judges of the Russian Constitutional Court, journalists and TV channels have been added to the blacklist. Besides, sanctions have been imposed on several Russian companies, including 1C, ABBYY and their Ukrainian subsidiaries. In addition, Russia’s VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks, Mail.ru and Yandex internet companies have been banned.

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Ukraine crisis Sanctions vs. Russia

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