Europe is not happy with this decision.
The world community quite sharply reacted to the decision by Ukrainian authorities to block access to Russian Internet resources, which fell under the sanctions.
Europe, which regularly suffered from acts of Russian propaganda and kiberd, alert has responded to the Ukraine’s struggle with Russian aggression by means of restrictions to the Russian sites, through which the Russian intelligence agencies surely felt in Ukraine.
As you know, yesterday the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko has put into action the decision of the Council about the ban in Ukraine a number of online resources, including popular social networks and websites as “Vkontakte”, “Odnoklassniki”, “IMDb”, “Yandex” and others. Under the sanctions also got famous software products of “1C”, “Kaspersky”, “Mail.ru”.
So, first and foremost, of course, commented on the situation of the country, against which imposed sanctions. The Kremlin said that Ukraine is not so much some powerful information resources and popular in Russian-speaking countries, however, continue to “closely monitor the situation in Ukraine.”
But the international human rights organization Freedom House believes that blocking Russian sites restricts the freedom of free expression of opinions and beliefs.
“We are concerned about the decision that Ukraine might block access to the media resources, websites and the media. This can lead to restriction of access to information, debate political and social issues of citizens in a pluralistic media sector”, – said the Director of the Ukrainian representative office of the organization Matthew Schaaf.
The German foreign Ministry was concerned to take the news from Ukraine. So, the official representative of the German foreign Ministry Martin Schaefer said that “much of what is accepted in respect of the media… causes us issues in the field of freedom of the press and the media.”
“We very carefully and with some concern noted yesterday’s new sanctions of the Ukrainian government, the Ukrainian President and the national security Council against Russia”, – he said.
In the same spirit spoke and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe thorbjørn Aged, which worries that sanctions against Russian sites violate the freedom of expression in Ukraine.
“Blocking social networking, search engines, email services and news websites is contrary to our common understanding of freedom of expression and freedom of media. In addition, such broad prohibitions do not meet the principle of proportionality, ” said the European politician.
Harsh comments about the sanction against the Russian Internet resources, the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, which believes that Ukraine should repeal the ban on Russian Internet platforms.
Petro Poroshenko struck a terrible blow to freedom of speech in Ukraine. It is inexcusable violation of the rights of Ukrainians to information of their choice. EU and other international partners of Ukraine should immediately call on Ukraine to cancel it,” – said the representative of the NGO Tanya Cooper.
Representatives of the European Union was more restrained and yet just want to get away from Ukraine for additional information regarding the adopted sanction decisions.
To enter the position of Ukraine could only NATO military bloc, where it is believed that blocking Russian sites in Ukraine – it is a safety issue, not freedom of speech.
“The Ukrainian government has made clear that this decision is a safety issue, not freedom of speech. NATO is working with Ukraine to strengthen its reforms, including issues of democracy, rule of law and respect for human rights. Freedom of the press is included in this dialogue. We believe in Ukraine’s commitment to its international obligations and the existing in Ukraine system of checks and balances,” – said the press service of the Alliance.
Revoke Ban on Dozens of Russian Web Companies
“This is yet another example of the ease with which President Poroshenko unjustifiably tries to control public discourse in Ukraine,” said Tanya Cooper, Ukraine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Poroshenko may try to justify this latest step, but it is a cynical, politically expedient attack on the right to information affecting millions of Ukrainians, and their personal and professional lives.”
Ukrainian internet service providers would be required to block access to internet companies that are on a government sanctions list. The decree includes an appendix with a widely expanded list of individuals and companies under sanction in Ukraine. Experts said it would be hard to enforce.
The decree imposes a ban on access to popular Russian social media networks, such as VK (formerly VKontakte) and Odnoklassniki, both owned by the Mail.Ru Group. Alisher Usmanov, an oligarch with close ties to the Kremlin, owns stakes in the Mail.Ru Group. As of April, 78 percent of all internet users in Ukraine, or around 20 million, had a VK account.
The decree also orders a block on public access to the Russian search engine Yandex and its various services, such as Yandex.Music, Yandex.Money, and dozens of others with .ua and .ru domains. As of March, 48 percent of internet users in Ukraine used Yandex daily.
Various software programs, such as the language processing software ABBYY and accounting software 1C, used by many Ukrainian companies, have also been banned. Other companies affected are the Russian media companies RBC, Ren-TV, TNT, NTV Plus, the 1 Channel, Zvezda, Moscow 24, a Russian state news agency Rossiya Segodnya, and internet security companies Kaspersky Lab and DrWeb. Russian banks, airlines, oil companies, defense industry companies, and Crimean businesses are also affected.
The presidential decree, which enacts a decision by the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, was published on May 16, 2017. It is one in a series of measures imposing economic sanctions on individuals and legal entities with ties to the Russian government. Such sanctions include freezing of assets in Ukraine and other economic and financial restrictions; for individuals, it also means a ban on people on the sanctions list entering the country.
The decree expands the list of those under sanction in Ukraine to 1,228 individuals and 468 legal entities in Russia, Russia-occupied Crimea, areas in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions controlled by Russia-backed separatists, and other countries. The duration of sanctions varies from one to three years.
The decree assigns monitoring the sanctions to Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers, the National Security Service, and the National Bank of Ukraine.
Oksana Romaniuk, executive director of Kyiv-based Institute of Mass Information, told Human Rights Watch that the government had not provided a valid justification for why such a broad ban on online companies was necessary. She also insisted that the decree would be hard to enforce without changing the law. Currently, only a court can order internet service providers to take action against a website. The head of Ukraine’s internet association, Oleksandr Fedienko, said in a media interview that Ukrainian internet service providers don’t have the technical ability to block Russian social media and news websites. He also said the ban would be ineffective due to a variety of ways to circumvent online censorship.
Ukraine is a party to the European Convention on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both of which guarantee freedom of expression, including access to information. Only restrictions that are necessary and proportionate for a legitimate purpose may be imposed, and the ban set out in the decree does not pass that test.
In the past two years, Poroshenko has signed similar decrees introducing sanctions. In June 2016, a presidential decree banned 17 Russian journalists, editors, and media executives from traveling to Ukraine. In September 2015, the government banned several hundred Russian individuals and legal entities from entering Ukraine for a year. Among them were 41 journalists and bloggers from several countries, including Russia, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In May 2016, Poroshenko removed 29 people from the list of those sanctioned.
“In a single move Poroshenko dealt a terrible blow to freedom of expression in Ukraine,” Cooper said. “It’s an inexcusable violation of Ukrainians’ right to information of their choice, and the European Union and Ukraine’s other international partners should immediately call on Ukraine to reverse it.”
Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, on Wednesday sent its millions of Ukrainian users instructions on how to circumvent a ban by the Ukrainian government.
Kiev on Tuesday forbade Ukrainian web hosts to provide access to popular Russian social networks, part of a package of restrictions on Russian internet firms that it said was intended to guard against cyber threats.
Critics said the move amounted to censorship; Vkontakte is the second most visited site in Ukraine and part of the web empire of Russia's Mail.ru Group (MAILRq.L), which estimated that 25 million Ukrainian users could be affected.
In a statement to Reuters, Vkontakte said it had sent its users a link to instructions for accessing its website once the ban comes into effect.
"We love our Ukrainian users and want you to be able to remain in touch with your friends and close acquaintances always," the message said.
The instructions included links to virtual private networks and to Tor software, which is designed to protect user privacy.
Ukraine said the ban was necessary to guard against Russian propaganda and cyber attacks following a collapse in relations due to Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014 and an ensuing conflict with pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
But Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Council of Europe said restricting access to social media amounted to an attack on freedom of expression.
"This is yet another example of the ease with which President Poroshenko unjustifiably tries to control public discourse in Ukraine," HRW's Ukraine researcher, Tanya Cooper, said in a statement.
In Ukraine, a petition calling for the ban to be revoked was posted on the president's website on Wednesday, while small protests were held in Kiev and the eastern city of Kharkiv.
Shortly after announcing the measures on Tuesday, Ukraine said Russia had mounted a cyber attack on President Petro Poroshenko's website. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday dismissed the accusation as baseless.
Ukrainian lawmaker Serhiy Leshchenko said the authorities in Kiev had gone too far.
"If the aim was to fight Russian influence, there are ways to work within the networks rather than blocking them entirely," he said in an opinion piece published on the website of the Ukrainian magazine Novoye Vremya.
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