The Russian parliament has passed a law barring foreign investors from owning more than a 20% stake in the country’s media outlets. The move comes amid a propaganda war with the west over the Ukraine crisis.

The legislation, which was passed by the state Duma without debate on Friday with a vote of 430-2, forbids international organisations and foreign citizens, companies and governments from founding or holding more than a 20% stake in Russian media businesses. Although it will come into force at the start of 2016, media owners will have until 1 February 2017 to bring their holdings into compliance.

Foreign ownership of radio and television outlets, as well as print publications with a circulation of more than one million, was previously limited to 50%. The law will affect a wide variety of publications, including the country’s leading business daily, Vedomosti, the Russian versions of glossy magazines such as Esquire, GQ and Cosmopolitan, and television channels such as Disney and Eurosport.

Debating the legislation on Tuesday, Vadim Dengin, one of the bill’s authors, said the tighter limit on foreign ownership would help protect Russia from western influence and its own “fifth column”. A deputy from the nationalist Liberal Democratic party of Russia argued that Russian-owned channels would probably show fewer movies “where Russia is always shown as the aggressor”.

Sergei Mironov, leader of A Just Russia, said: “We’re living in the conditions of an information war that is being openly waged against our country by several foreign governments … The access of foreign citizens and companies to the Russian media market clearly needs to be regulated more carefully and strictly.”

With the exception of a few respected print and online outlets, the Russian media has negatively covered the protests that toppled Viktor Yanukovich in Kiev last winter while portraying the pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine in a positive light.

The extreme difference between Russian and western coverage became especially apparent after the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight 17, when Russian television and popular newspapers promoted a variety of conspiracy theories implicating the Ukrainian government.

The editors and publishers of media outlets independent from state control have said the new legislation will further reduce the diversity of opinion in the Russian media. Russian Forbes editor Elmar Murtazayev said the publication would probably close if the law passed, since its German parent company Axel Springer did not want to sell it to a Russian owner.

The state controls all of Russia’s major television channels, and the independent Dozhd television channel was dropped by major distributors this year under what many saw as government pressure. Pro-Kremlin publishers have been installed at the critical media outlets Ekho Moskvy and Lenta.ru.

Speaking on Dozhd, Vedomosti editor-in-chief Tatiana Lysova called the new law “utter paranoia and a good method of manipulation”. She said: “The independence of the editorial staff from the owners is already regulated by the law on mass media … Not once has a request, bit of advice or even an opinion about how we cover something been put forth by our foreign investors.”

Murtazayev argued that the legislation was partly meant as a retaliation to US and European sanctions against Russia, since it would hurt mainly western companies. It would also allow Russian players to gain control of lucrative glossy magazine advertising, he said on Dozhd.

Another main argument for the law when it was discussed in the Duma was that similar measures are already in place in other countries. China, Kazakhstan and Malaysia, for example, have severe limitations on foreign media ownership.

In the US and UK, foreigners can own outlets as they establish a locally based company. Notably, the Russian businessman Alexander Lebedev reportedly owns 70% of the Independent and Evening Standard.