MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor stated on Friday it had blocked the web sites of the CIA and FBI, accusing the 2 U.S. authorities companies of spreading false info, the TASS information company reported.

“Roskomnadzor has restricted entry to various assets belonging to state buildings of hostile international locations for disseminating materials geared toward destabilising the social and political scenario in Russia,” Roskomnadzor stated in a press release carried by Russian information companies.

TASS quoted Roskomnadzor as saying that the 2 U.S. web sites had revealed inaccurate materials and data that had discredited the Russian armed forces.

“This motion by Russia’s authorities is unsurprising and accompanies present bans on many different web sites,” a State Division spokesperson stated in an e mail.

Representatives for the FBI, CIA and Roskomnadzor didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

CRIMINAL OFFENCE

Russia has made it a legal offence to discredit its armed forces, against the law punishable by as much as 5 years in jail, whereas knowingly distributing “false info” concerning the navy carries a most sentence of 15 years.

Since Russia despatched tens of 1000’s of troops into Ukraine in February final yr, Roskomnadzor has blocked a bunch of impartial media retailers, some overseas information web sites and social media platforms together with Fb (NASDAQ:), Instagram and Twitter.

Top10VPN, a monitoring agency that has been monitoring web sites blocked in Russia since Moscow despatched tens of 1000’s of troops into Ukraine on Feb. 24 final yr, stated Roskomnadzor has blocked over 4,300 domains, with greater than 85% of these regarding Ukrainian, Russian and worldwide information websites.

“Russian censors have beforehand blocked a handful of Ukraine’s authorities web sites however with the restrictions on the FBI and CIA web sites, that is the primary time they’ve prevented Russians from accessing different worldwide authorities web sites,” Simon Migliano, Head of Analysis at Top10VPN.com, advised Reuters.

“Other than the large social media platforms, solely a handful of main U.S. websites have been restricted, corresponding to NPR, Google (NASDAQ:) Information and AOL, which makes the timing of those newest restrictions much more intriguing.”