KIEV, August 2. /TASS/. Kiev will maintain its ban on Russian social media, Ukrainian Presidential Adviser Nikita Poturayev told Radio Svoboda.

"There are some hostile media outlets and social media whose activities we cannot approve because they are an enemy weapon. We just need to protect our media field and refrain from doing stupid things," he said.

Several weeks ago, the Ukrainian media reported that a number of Ukrainian internet providers had restored users’ access to Russian social networks. Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council later stated that the ban on Russian social media remained in effect.

On May 15, 2017, the then Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko endorsed a decision of the National Security and Defense Council on expanding the Russian sanctions list of 1,228 Russian individuals and 468 legal entities. Sanctions covered several TV channels and companies, including 1C, ABBYY and their Ukrainian subsidiaries as well as Russia’s VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks, Mail.ru and Yandex.