The intrigue surrounding the extension on Ukraine sanctions against Russian companies, Internet and media industry was resolved at the last moment: President Vladimir Zelensky all-taki has signed the decree about prolongation of the decision of his predecessor, Petro Poroshenko. Previously, Mr. Zelensky was argued that sanctions are ineffective to circumvent the ban on visiting portals “Yandex”, Mail.ru, “Vkontakte”, “Classmates” and other Russian sites is easy. However, to extend the restrictive measures urged by the security forces and the Ukrainian opposition, said: we are talking about “national security issue”.”Social networks and other online resources of the aggressor is a powerful weapon in the Russian-Ukrainian war. And today we defended our citizens from the action of this weapon!” — I wrote earlier in Facebook Deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the opposition party the “Voice” of Roman Lozinski, commenting on his initiative to start among Ukrainian MPs collecting signatures for the renewal of the sanctions package. The intrigue remained until the last moment. Concern among hardliners are caused, in particular, the fact that for the last year until the last moment there was not a single meeting of the Council of national security and defense Council (NSDC), a body responsible for approving the sanctions list, which addressed the issue of the extension of existing restrictive measures.The activation process occurred in April, when the head of the security Service of Ukraine (SBU), Ivan Bakanov made a proposal to ban the Russian web-resources for a further three years. NSDC meeting on the issue in the end took place on 13 may, two days before the end of the ban. The extension of sanctions was approved and then was submitted to President Vladimir Zelensky. In the end, the presidential decree was published in the night of Friday.Sanctions were imposed in the Ukraine in may 2017. Signed by the then President, Petro Poroshenko, the document provided for the introduction of restrictive measures against 468 of Russian and Ukrainian companies and individuals. 1228 In the list were companies from different industries — for example, banks, airlines, the military-industrial complex. For most of them the duration of the sanctions was for one year, so that the restrictive measures have been extended. But the sanctions against Russian companies, Internet and media industry have been introduced mainly for three years. Under the ban, in particular, were “Yandex” and Mail.ru Group, social networks “Vkontakte” and “Classmates”, “Kaspersky Lab” and “Doctor Web”, “First channel”, “TV Center”, RBC, VGTRK and “NTV-Plus”, “Star”, TNT, REN TV, NEG. Among other things, the document introduced a temporary blocking of assets of companies and restrictions on trading with them, prohibited the withdrawal of capital outside Ukraine. Ukrainian Internet providers reqetili to provide users with access to resources and services of the defendants in the list.Petro Poroshenko explained his decision by the presence of “cyber threats from Russia”, which includes Europe and the United States. The Russian foreign Ministry then said “censorship for political reasons”. The decree criticized human rights activists. So, last year the Director of the representative office of the international organization Freedom House in Kiev, Matthew Schaaf said: “Internet sanctions significantly restrict freedom of expression in Ukraine.” And he added: it is a “serious challenge to the rule of law, which is the basis of democracy.””Friends, I have a question. How do you feel about the idea of closing the Telegram, given his background, so to speak?” — wrote Wednesday in Facebook MP from the Pro-presidential party “servant of the people” Victoria Podgornaya. However, she noted: the resource “is often used in questionable, and sometimes criminal purposes”.From locking the messenger in the Ukraine decided to refrain, and the post was soon deleted. MP from the “Voices” Roman Lozinski noted in conversation with “Kommersant” that the approval of the sanctions list is not within the competence of the Verkhovna Rada, but the list to expand the “definitely need”. “I’m sure in these three years there were numerous cases of cyber attacks using the products of companies with Russian roots, including Telegram. This information is from the SBU and the competent authorities. Only they can decide how dangerous it is, particularly, Telegram”.Vladimir Zelensky in the event of the messenger never spoke, although criticized political Telegram-channels for misinformation. As to the measures of his predecessor he had previously been critical. In April of last year mister Zelensky has compared the ban of Internet resources with the “parks in Kiev”. “Was illegally parked, for example— fined. Give me Parking and then harshly punish me when I do not comply with the law,” he said. The politician noted that the sanctions have failed, “And what have we achieved? Our (Ukrainian.— “Y”) began to circumvent the ban”.At the time of blocking the social network “Vkontakte” was the third most visited place among all websites in Ukraine Mail.ru and “Yandex” — the fourth and fifth, respectively, and “Schoolmates” — the tenth. And now resources continue to be popular. According to the analytical Agency SimilarWeb, April 2020 the social network “Vkontakte” dropped only to fourth place in the Ukrainian ranking of website visits, second only to Google, YouTube and Facebook. “Classmates”, on the contrary, improved its position and climbed to ninth place, while “Yandex” and Mail.ru continue to enter the top twenty. The Deputy Roman Lozinski believes that the restrictive measures are “necessary, even if they were not supported by the majority of Ukrainians.” In his wordsm, we are talking about “national security issue”. The politician in conversation with “Kommersant” expressed regret that Vladimir Zelensky waited until the last minute: “Why keep the Ukrainians in tension and to allow for speculation on the Russian side, I do not know. I hope this mistake it will consider for the future.”Marina Kovalenko
