Moldova blocks access to more than 20 Russian media websites

CHISINAU (Reuters) -Moldova on Tuesday blocked access to more than 20 Russian media websites, saying they had been used as part of an information war against the country.

The Russian Foreign Ministry branded the move a "hostile step" aimed at denying Moldovans access to alternative news sources.

A decree published online by Moldova's Intelligence and Security Service listed 22 Russian news resources to be blocked, including prominent ones such as Russia Today, NTV, Ren TV, state media holding VGTRK and others.

The decree said Internet providers had been ordered to block the sites immediately. Some of them still worked when checked by a Reuters reporter in Chisinau following the announcement.

Russia's Foreign Ministry, in a statement on its website, said: "This is an openly hostile step towards Russia and yet another instance of the mindless anti-Russian policies of the Chisinau authorities."

Blocking websites, it said, was "a flagrant infringement by Moldovan authorities of freedom of speech and the rights of its own citizens to have access to information in Russian."

Moldova restricted TV broadcasts of Russia-produced news, analytical and military-related content in June 2022 following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine earlier that year, allowing only entertainment shows and movies.

Romanian is the sole official language in ex-Soviet Molodva, wedged between Ukraine and Romania, but Russian is still widely spoken.

Moldova's relations with Moscow have deteriorated rapidly during the war launched by Russia in Ukraine.

Pro-European President Maia Sandu denounced the invasion, and has since accused Moscow of plotting a coup against her government and trying to destabilise the country. Moscow rejects that and accuses Moldova of pursuing an anti-Russian agenda.

(Reporting by Aleksandr Tanas; Writing by Yuliia Dysa; Editing by Tom Balmforth, Kirsten Donovan and Ron Popeski)