Google was blocked on the territory of the “DPR”, Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed republic, said :
“There is a real persecution of Russians, the imposition of lies and disinformation. At the forefront of information technology in this regard is the Google search engine, which openly, on the orders of its curators from the US government, promotes terrorism and violence against all Russians, and especially the population of Donbass,” he said.
The day before, the head of the "LPR" Leonid Pasechnik also announced the blocking of Google:
“The company conducts targeted propaganda of terrorism and extremism, which means that it simply doesn’t value its users from the Lugansk People’s Republic,” said Pasechnik. “We don’t need such information flights either from Ukraine or from the West. We can do it without Google. If they improve, they start respecting people, we will think about returning.”
On July 19, it was reported that YouTube (owned by Google) could be blocked in Russia by the fall, when the Russian service RuTube will be fully operational. This was stated by Igor Ashmanov, a member of the Council under the President of Russia for the development of civil society and human rights, the president of the research and technology company Kribrum.
On July 18, the World Court of the Tagansky District of Moscow imposed a turnover fine of 21 billion 77 million rubles on Google for refusing to remove “inaccurate information about the course of the special operation” from YouTube. This is the second turnover fine for Google. The first, in the amount of 7.2 billion rubles, was imposed in December 2021, also for refusing to remove prohibited information. In addition, the company was ordered to pay an additional 505 million rubles as a performance fee.