Occupying authorities in Crimea began blocking Ukrainian websites

In Crimea, occupied by Russia, the authorities began to block Ukrainian informational websites. In particular, currently access is limited to at least three Ukrainian online media outlets, Channel 5 reports.  

‘Censor.net’ being one of them, users trying to access this website see instead a message: ‘Access has been limited by the court decision or due to other grounds as stipulated by the legislation of the Russian Federation.’ 

Some local providers have blocked the websites ‘Glavnoe’ and ‘Novy Region’.   

Earlier, on Roskomnadzor’s demands, access was blocked only to separate materials, like the articles about the planned March for Federalization in Siberia.

For the context, on August 1, Roskomnadzor of the Russian Federation included Kharkiv online media outlet ‘Glavnoe’ glavnoe.ua to the Unified register of websites that contain information, whose proliferation in the RF is prohibited by the court decision. Since the beginning of August, in Russia the amendments to the law came into effect that sets bloggers equal to media outlets and thus makes them equally responsible for the information they post.  

In March of this year, after Crimea was annexed by Russia, broadcasting of all Ukrainian TV channels was terminated and their frequencies have been used since to broadcast Russian TV channels. At the end of June, providers of cable television in Crimea terminated broadcasting of most popular Ukrainian TV channels.