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Kiev’s new anti-Russian sanctions violate Ukrainians’ rights to information — Kremlin

Moscow is not ready yet to specify its possible retaliatory measures against new Ukraine’s sanctions

SOCHI, May 16. /TASS/. Having expanded its anti-Russian sanctions Kiev once again violated the Ukrainians’ rights to information, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.

"It [the anti-Russian sanctions expansion] is yet another step in a chain of many others that violate Ukrainian people’s right to receive information they want to know," he told journalists.

He said it is "yet another manifestation of unfriendly, shortsighted policy towards Russia." In his words, the news sanctions reveal "who can be behind the situation when we see the Minsk agreements being stalled."

Moscow is not ready yet to specify its possible retaliatory measures against new Ukraine’s sanctions, but bears in mind the reciprocity principle, according to Peskov.

"We are monitoring the situation rather carefully, and certainly, we keep in mind the reciprocity principle," Peskov said. "I’m not ready to tell you now (what countermeasures may be taken)."

"There are not so many major information resources in Ukraine, which are popular in the Russian-language space," he explained.

Earlier on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko enforced the decision of the Ukrainian National Security and Defense Council on expanding the list of Russian nationals and entities subject to Ukrainian sanctions and extending earlier sanctions. The blacklist includes 1,228 individuals and 468 legal entities. Among the blacklisted entities are Russian social networks Vkontakte (VK) and Odnoklassniki (Classmates), and also e-mail services Mail.ru and Yandex. Internet providers in Ukraine will block access to these websites.

Vkontakte is the largest and most popular social networking website both in Russia and Ukraine. Odnoklassniki ranks fifth in popularity in these countries. Both websites were founded in 2006 and belong to Mail.Ru Group Russian Internet company.