Some ISPs unblocked banned Russian and separatist websites

Some subscribers of Volya, Kyivstar, and other regional ISPs have got an access to separatist and Russian websites, which should be blocked in accordance with the Presidential decrees, as web-based edition Gordon reported. One of the largest Ukrainian Internet providers "Volya" has suspended blockage of DAN news agency, which is under the control of "Donetsk People’s Republic" militia (dan-news.info), according to the Gordon. In conformity to the presidential decree #82 / 2019 of March 19, 2019, which he enacted the decision of the National security and defense council, access to this resource should be blocked in the territory of Ukraine for the next three years. At the same time, the website of the Louhansk People’s Republic militia’s agency Lits (lug-info.com) is still not accessible for Volya subscribers. Moreover, other separatist sites "Russkaya Vesna" (rusvesna.su), "Politnavigator" (politnavigator.net), News Front (news-front.info), the site of the so-called Prosecutor General's Office of the LPR (gplnr.su) are now available for Volya subscribers. Also, "Volya" has opened an access to the website yandex.ua (the site yandex.ru is still blocked), but the subdomains mail.yandex.ua, music.yandex.ua, radio.yandex.ua are not available. The website yandex.ua was not mentioned in the presidential decree, but it was mentioned in the decree signed by the president # 133/2017 of May 15, 2017. According to this document, the site yandex.ua should be blocked in Ukraine for three years, until May 2020. The Russian WebMoney website (webmoney.ru) is also available, but at the same time webmoney.ua is not available. The “Volya” agents could not explain why some separatist and Russian sites were not blocked and promised to provide information to the management of the company. Later, Volia's PR-manager Natalia Yakovetska commented on these facts and said that the company operated exclusively within the limits prescribed by the law and "does not consider it indispensable to comment on rumors that have recently been spread in the media saying that " Volya allegedly "has unblocked some online resources" .   Kyivstar subscribers had temporarily access to Politnavigator (politnavigator.net) and Kharkov News Agency (nahnews.org) websites. Access to them should be restricted, according to Presidential Decree # 82/2019, for another three years. “Kyivstar fulfills the requirements of the Presidential Decree on preventing access to Internet resources that violate Ukrainian law. However, some sites try to circumvent blocking by migrating to new IPs or hosting platforms. Our experts are trying to quickly identify such schemes and take countermeasures. That is why feedback from our users is very important to us, which helps us to react promptly to the actions of the offending sites, ” as the company press service explained. Some regional providers have also been unblocked some banned websites. The Dnepr subscribers of "Soyuz Telecom" have access to the site of Donetsk militia, in the network of the UNTC provider (the company provides services in Kiev and Kiev region, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Rivne, Kharkiv, Kherson and Cherkasy) one could open the VKontakte website, Yandex.ua , separatist websites of DAN and Lits, as well as some others. At the same time, Yandex services (Yandex.News, Yandex.Music, etc.) are still unavailable. The UNTC hotline operator was unable to promptly answer the question why some of the blocked resources were available to ISP clients, and advised the customer service department. The publication tries to comment on the National Security and Defense Council. Access to some Russian and separatist resources has been restricted from May 2017 for a period of one to three years, in accordance with  the presidential decree #133/2018, which had been signed by the president Petro Poroshenko.