A Moscow court on Tuesday fined video streaming service Twitch ₽4 million ($67,769) for spreading misinformation about the war in Ukraine, the state news agency TASS said.

The case concerns an interview with Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych, who allegedly made misleading statements about airstrikes in the Odesa region of southern Ukraine.

However, Twitch was asked to delete the interview.

Following the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February, the Russian parliament passed a law criminalising both slander of Russian troops and the spread of alleged misinformation about the war.

As a result, several independent media and internet platforms have been banned or fined.

The Wikimedia Foundation, which finances the infrastructure of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia, is also facing a fine.

The foundation allegedly refused to delete the misinformation about the “special military operation,” the official phrasing Moscow insists be used to refer to the war in Ukraine. 

(dpa/NAN)