A court in Moscow banned the Facebook and Instagram sites on Monday for what it considered extremist activity in a case against the parent company Meta.

The Tverskoy District Court fulfilled a request from prosecutors to ban Meta Platforms Inc. and banned Facebook and Instagram due to what they described as "extremist activities".

 Russian prosecutors accused social media sites of ignoring government requests to remove what they called false news about Russian military operations in Ukraine and calls for anti-war protests in Russia.

The court ruling prohibits Meta from opening offices and conducting business in Russia. Meta declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.

Prosecutors did not request a ban on the Meta-owned messaging service WhatsApp, which is very popular in Russia. Authorities also confirmed that they do not intend to punish individual Russians using Facebook or Instagram.

Instagram and Facebook were already banned in Russia after the Russian telecom and media company Roskomnadzor said they were used to incite violence against Russian soldiers. In addition to banning Facebook and Instagram, Russian authorities also blocked access to foreign media sites, including BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, and the Latvia-based website Meduza.

Continuing the efforts, the Russian telecom and media company Roskomnadzor blocked the Euronews site, a European news network, on Monday. The regulator also cut broadcasting on Euronews.

The court ruling comes amid multifaceted efforts by Russian authorities to control the narrative related to Russian military action in Ukraine, which the Kremlin describes as a "special military operation" aimed at rooting out alleged "neo-Nazi nationalists".

In the same context, a new law was issued on March 4 by the Kremlin-controlled parliament, a week after Russia launched the attack on Ukraine, stipulating prison terms up to 15 years for publishing "fake" information about the military that differs from the official narrative.

Editing: Dima Abu Khair