Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has banned Russia Today (RT), Rossiya Segodnya, and other Russian state-owned media from its platforms, citing their involvement in deceptive practices to conduct influence operations. In a statement released on Monday, Meta said the decision was made following thorough consideration and is part of expanded sanctions against Russian state media.

“We have taken action to extend our sanctions against Russian state-owned media. RT, Rossiya Segodnya, and related entities are now banned globally from our platforms due to their participation in foreign interference activities,” the statement said. This ban affects Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads.

The move comes shortly after the Biden administration announced sanctions targeting RT and other Moscow-controlled media outlets. U.S. officials have characterized RT as an integral part of Russia’s intelligence operations. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaking on Friday, emphasized the importance of truth in countering Russian misinformation. “Our strongest weapon against Russia’s falsehoods is the truth. It illuminates what the Kremlin is trying to hide,” Blinken said.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Justice charged two RT employees with allegedly funding a right-wing media outlet in Tennessee in an effort to sow political division in the United States.

RT, which had 7.2 million followers on Facebook prior to the ban, has not yet commented on Meta’s decision. However, in a previous statement responding to U.S. actions, the broadcaster dismissed the legal charges with a mocking tone, stating: “We eat DOJ indictments for breakfast. Usually with a lot of sour cream.”

American CitiBank, one of the largest Western banks in Russia and one of the country’s 20 largest banks by assets, is winding down its operations in Russia.

According to information obtained by Frank Media from CitiBank, the bank’s subsidiary in Russia will close its last retail branch on 15 November.

The branch near the Paveletskaya metro station in the capital Moscow will also close within two months. Citibank advised its customers to “consider other options for making deposits and other transactions”.

All Citibank debit cards will be invalid from 20 September, and money transfers, ATM cash withdrawals and QR code purchases, including through the Central Bank’s Faster Payment System, will be stopped from 25 September.

Citigroup had planned to sell its retail operations in Russia in early 2021, but decided to close them completely following the military intervention in Ukraine.

The volume of loans granted by the bank since the beginning of 2022 has decreased by 98 per cent to 2.4 billion roubles. Of the 154 billion roubles in deposits from individual clients, only 1 billion roubles remained, and the funds held in commercial accounts fell more than 90 times, from 346 billion roubles to 3.8 billion roubles.

Following Citi’s lead, European banks began to close their operations in Russia. Raiffeisenbank, one of the largest, stopped foreign transfers for most of its clients at the end of August.

The total assets of foreign banks in the country at the beginning of this year will be only $66 billion. This is almost half the pre-war level of 2021 ($119 billion) and less than a quarter of the record level of 2012 ($239 billion).

Russian President Vladimir Putin outlined his vision of the economy of the future and announced new mortgage relief measures in his speech to the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok this week.

According to the TASS news agency, Putin stressed that the economy of the future would be “built around people”, emphasising the importance of social infrastructure as well as industrial development.

“This logic is not only unfair, it does not work in the modern economy,” Putin said, referring to the practice of building industrial facilities without social amenities.

The president announced a retroactive increase in mortgage subsidies for large families in Far Eastern regions with low birth rates, effective July 1. The payment will be raised to 1 million roubles ($10,900 at current exchange rates).

“I propose that we solve this problem. Let’s keep the interest rate on mortgages in the Far East and the Arctic at 2 per cent a year,” Putin said.

On the other hand, Putin described the Far East as “a very important factor in strengthening Russia’s position in the world” and the country’s “flagship” in the new global economic reality: “The Far Eastern regions provide direct access to these growing and promising markets and allow us to overcome the barriers that some Western elites are trying to impose on the world”.

“The main business links, trade routes and the entire vector of development are increasingly oriented towards the East and the global South,” the Russian leader said.

Putin also called for consideration to be given to the construction of a nuclear power plant in the Far East and stressed the need to fully double track and electrify the Baikal-Amur main line railway.

Putin also underlined Russia’s readiness to carry out large-scale transport projects, saying: “We can build quickly, comprehensively and with high quality”.

In addition, Putin stated that his country was not pursuing a policy of ‘de-dollarisation’ and that Russia was not the party that abandoned dollar-denominated payments, saying: “We are not pursuing a policy of de-dollarisation. After all, we did not reject dollar-denominated agreements, they rejected the agreements and we had to look for other possibilities,” Putin said.

Putin added that the currency reflects a country’s economic power, saying that the more partners a country has, the more its currency will be in demand.

“After the Second World War, the US took advantage of this situation and made the dollar the world currency. Now the situation is changing,” Putin said, noting that the countries of the global South now account for more than 50 per cent of world GDP.

The Russian leader stressed the importance of ensuring resource sovereignty for the country’s uninterrupted supply of affordable fuel and raw materials. He pointed to the potential of the Far East to produce titanium, lithium, niobium, rare earth metals and other resources “necessary for the economy of the future”.

Putin also called for the speeding up of legislation needed to launch international priority development zones in the Far East.

Putin also spoke about the joint Russian-Chinese project to develop Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island in the Khabarovsk region, which is due to start in 2025.

The president underlined Russia’s commitment to modern technologies by announcing plans to launch a civilian drone project in the Far East.