Ukraine

[UA] Sanctions against Russian online and broadcast companies

IRIS 2017-7:1/33

Andrei Richter

Comenius University (Bratislava)

On 20 May 2017, President Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a decree that enforced the expanded list of sanctions against mostly Russian persons and legal entities.

The earlier President’s Decree N549/2015 of 16 September 2015, now superseded, included four TV companies: First Channel - World Network, RTR-Planeta, Rossiya-24, and NTV. The current decree, which expands the list to 468 legal entities, now refers to such TV companies as TV-Center, TNT, RBC, NTV-Plus, Zvezda, Moskva-24, Peterburg, Ren-TV, and OTV (Public Television).

In addition to the broadcasters, the decree has introduced sanctions against certain internet companies, including popular services Yandex, Mail.ru, and social networks Odnoklassniki (OK.ru) and Vkontakte (VK).

The sanctions mean that any of these companies can be stopped or restricted in the provision of telecommunication services and the use of general access telecommunication networks in Ukraine.

In most cases, the sanctions have been introduced for a period of three years, in other cases, for one year.

The National Commission for the State Regulation of Communications and Informatization of Ukraine, the authority for state regulation and control in the areas of telecommunications and the use of radio frequencies, has distributed a memorandum to Ukrainian operators and ISPs on the obligatory enforcement of the sanctions, reminding them of administrative penalties (fines) should the decree not be implemented.