MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -Mexico will not impose any economic sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Tuesday while also criticizing what he called censorship of Russian state-sponsored media by social media companies.
“We are not going to take any sort of economic reprisal because we want to have good relations with all the governments in the world,” Lopez Obrador said at a regular news conference.
Lopez Obrador’s position stands in contrast to the international sanctions Russia is facing for President Vladimir Putin’s actions, which have shattered the post-Cold War peace in Europe.
Oil company Shell became the latest Western firm to announce it was pulling out of Russia. The sanctions and global financial isolation have already had a devastating impact on Russia’s economy, with the rouble in freefall and queues outside banks as Russians rush to salvage their savings.
“I don’t agree with the fact that media from Russia or any country is censored,” Lopez Obrador said.
Alphabet Inc’s Google barred Russia’s state-owned media outlet RT and other channels from receiving money for ads on their websites, apps and YouTube videos, similar to a move by Facebook after the invasion of Ukraine.
Alphabet and its YouTube unit should ban users pushing war propaganda as part of measures to stop disinformation, EU industry chief Thierry Breton told the chief executives of the companies on Sunday.
(Reporting by Anthony Esposito and Ana Isabel Martinez; Editing by Will Dunham and Drazen Jorgic)
