A Moscow court announced on Monday that it had ordered the arrest in absentia of Andy Stone, a spokesman for Meta Platforms, the company founded and run by Mark Zuckerberg, on several terrorism charges, Reuters reported.

Russia has become increasingly hostile to Zuckerberg’s company and other American social networks since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

Meta’s main platforms, Facebook and Instagram, were banned in Russia less than a month after the start of the war, and a Moscow court declared Meta an “extremist organization.”

Russia’s Interior Ministry opened a criminal case against Stone last year, but did not disclose the charges against a representative of the American company.

However, on Monday, the court of the Basmanny district of Moscow said that he was charged with “propaganda of terrorist activities, public calls to commit terrorist acts, public justification of terrorism or propaganda of terrorism, public calls to extremist activities.”

The court also announced that Stone is being persecuted by Russia, including internationally.

The move comes after Russia’s Investigative Committee opened an investigation into “illegal activities by Meta employees” in March 2022, specifically naming Stone responsible for “lifting the ban on incitement to violence against Russia’s armed forces.”

The Russian prosecutor’s office said at the time that this was tantamount to incitement to extremist activity.