According to a statement made on Twitter by the company, "It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action".
The move follows President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen's announcement that the European Union intends to ban state-owned Russian media outlets, including Sputnik, RT and their subsidiaries, as part of new sanctions imposed on the country amid its military operation in Ukraine.
On Monday, Instagram and Meta, formerly known as Facebook, restricted access to Sputnik news agency and the broadcaster RT across the European Union.
"We have received requests from a number of governments and the EU to take further steps in relation to Russian state-controlled media. Given the exceptional nature of the current situation, we will be restricting access to RT and Sputnik across the EU at this time," Meta’s Vice President of Global Affairs and Communications Nick Clegg said on Twitter on Monday.
Instagram service is unavailable for members of the Sputnik team in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and Czech Republic.
Furthermore, the TikTok accounts of Russia-affiliated media resources, including RT and Sputnik, are now unavailable to users in the European Union, according to reports, with Sputnik correspondents in Spain and Germany confirming denied access in the early hours of Tuesday, local time.
The targeting of Russian foreign language media by Western governments is part and parcel of a broad package of measures taken by the US, the EU and their allies against Russia over its ongoing military operation in Ukraine. Other measures include tough new banking and personal sanctions, and the shutdown of airspace to Russian commercial aircraft.
Moscow is carrying out a speacial operation in Ukraine to demilitarise and 'denazify' the country after a request for assistance from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, which have faced weeks of intensified artillery and mortar attacks by Ukrainian forces.
These unprecedented bans are a clear assault on free speech, but you can still follow Sputnik on Telegram to avoid missing all the important news!
Our Telegram channels:
Sputnik News US — https://t.me/sputniknewsus
Global news — https://t.me/sputniknewsint
Sputnik News India — https://t.me/sputniknewsindia