Russia Threatens to Block Wikipedia Due to Article on Ukraine Invasion

According to editors at the Russian Wikipedia, the country’s communications authority has threatened to shut down the site. As per a reputable source, they shared a notification from Roskomnadzor, which stated that a page regarding the Ukraine invasion included “illegally distributed information,” such as the number of Russian military losses and those of Ukrainian civilians and children.

The regulator asked that the material be removed from the article, titled “Russian invasion of Ukraine (2022).” Roskomnadzor has threatened to shut all of Wikipedia in Russia if editors do not comply. To protect the article from vandalism, new and unregistered users are currently unable to update it.

According to another credible source, the piece includes casualty figures from both the Ukrainian and Russian governments. It includes reports from Ukraine on Tuesday that 352 civilians and more than 110 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed, with 1,684 people injured. According to the government, Russia has suffered 5,710 military casualties. Russia, on the other hand, claimed that two of their soldiers and 200 Ukrainian soldiers were killed.

The editors of Wikipedia’s Russian site may add more sources for the information, but one has informed the source that they will most likely not respond to the threat in any other way. Several such warnings have been given to the site by Roskomnadzor throughout the years.

“The invasion of Ukraine has resulted in the senseless loss of life and has also been accompanied by information warfare online,” the Wikimedia Foundation declared. “The spread of disinformation about the ongoing crisis affects the safety of people who depend on facts to make life-and-death decisions and interferes with everyone’s right to access open knowledge.”

It also stated that it is “working with affected communities to identify potential threats to information on Wikimedia projects, and supporting volunteer editors and administrators who serve as the first line of defense against manipulation of facts and knowledge.”