Block YouTube says leader of Russian mercenary group Wagner PMC

The head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner PMC, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has called on Russia’s Prosecutor General to block YouTube.

According to Russian news agency Kommersant on Monday, December 5, Prigozhin said that the online video channel “disseminates information aimed at creating a threat to the country’s defence capability and state security.”

Prigozhin also believes that the activities of Google should be looked into as it is engaged in “undesirable activities.”

In calling on the Prosecutor General to take action, he said that: “The toughest measures should be taken against YouTube” adding that it distributes “unreliable socially significant information under the guise of reliable reports.”

He continued saying that the information contained on the channel was “aimed at discrediting the performance by state bodies of the Russian Federation of their powers.

“This creates a threat of mass disruption of public order.”

Prigozhin is not the first to call for access to the channel to be blocked in Russia with the head of the Federation Council Commission on Information Policy and Interaction with the Media, Alexei Pushkov, making the same appeal in October.

YouTube has blocked a number of Russian organisations from posting on the site due to sanctions, including the Federation Council and the TV channel “Together-RF.” 

According to the Ministry of Figures there is no plan to block YouTube, but that the two billion rouble fine issued to Google had been upheld in a Russian court.

The appeal by Prigozhin is a blatant attempt to control the narrative around the war and the West, as it is an attempt to block Ukraine’s use of Google to target Russian military facilities.

Surprisingly with the call coming from the close ally Russian President Vladimir Putin, one would have expected the authorities to have heeded the call from the mercenary group head who wants to block YouTube access.

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