Liberal Russian radio station loses appeal against being taken off air

LONDON (Reuters) – A Moscow court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by liberal radio station Ekho Moskvy, one of the leading current affairs channels in Russia, against the authorities’ move to take it off air over its coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Ekho Moskvy stopped broadcasting last month after the prosecutor general’s office demanded that access to the station be restricted. It also ordered that its website be blocked for spreading what it called “deliberately false information” about Russia’s military operation.

The station, which has rejected the charges, later shut down under pressure from the authorities.

“The court has rejected Ekho’s request to have the radio station and website restored,” its longtime editor-in-chief, Alexander Venediktov, wrote on Telegram. “We will appeal.”

Russia says its actions in Ukraine are not designed to occupy territory but to destroy Kyiv’s military capabilities and neutralise what it regards as dangerous nationalists – a pretext rejected by Ukraine and the West as baseless propaganda to justify the invasion of its neighbour.

(Reporting by Reuters, Editing by William Maclean)