By his new anti-Russian sanctions the President of Ukraine appalled, to say the least millions of Ukrainians. Today Poroshenko banned his citizens from using Russian social media such as VKontakte and Odnoklassniki, search engines and e-mail, such as Yandex and Mail.Ru, and even Kaspersky antivirus. Anton Lyadov reports on dozens of millions of Ukrainians recalling North Korea.
It's like in North Korea. We might have another Maidan, as it's really detrimental. Even Ukrainian journalists lost their temper today. I'm reading it: access to Yandex will be blocked in Ukraine, and VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. The news that Kiev is blocking access to Russian social media, including VKontakte, was posted by Ukrainian President Petr Poroshenko on his own page in VKontakte.
Ukrainian Internet providers must stop the access to VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Yandex, and other Russian services. I call on all our compatriots to immediately withdraw from Russian servers for security reasons. For security reasons, they block access to weather forecast services, Yandex Taxi, the maps of subways, not only of Moscow subway, but also of Kiev, and the system that tracks traffic jams. Users immediately began to paint collages, like this Kiev gets rid of traffic jams: no Yandex, no traffic jams.
Services will be blocked for those who will follow direct links from the territory of Ukraine. And that's about 60% of the population. That's hardcore, you know, I can't find other words. So you can ban anything: Viber is for terrorists, WhatsApp is for separatists, and it's done. Ban everything, and display a static picture of Poroshenko, so that he could finally go on vacation for a while, since he works so hard. That's it, Poroshenko will replace all the TV channels. The audience of VKontakte is 13 million Ukrainian citizens daily.
5 million people use the Odnoklassniki social network, and there are 11 million users of Yandex services. If for some these sites are only convenient applications, for 2.5 million citizens of Ukraine, living in Russia, and their relatives it's a major means of communication with the dearest and nearest. The reaction of Internet users was immediate. Don't forget to replace TV news with the portrait of the President constantly displayed on the screen as the DPRK leader has long been unable to go on vacation. I drive with Yandex.Navigator, use VKontakte, there's no alternative for it.
Offer something better in return. This is the first use of a "nuclear weapon" on the Internet since its creation. About 25 million Ukrainians use the services of Mail.Ru group: -VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, e-mail... -More than a half! Yes, this is more than a half of the Internet audience in Ukraine. So, we must clearly understand what will happen to these people. Firstly, they'll lose all their connections with their friends, classmates, former and current colleagues. So, in the first place, the possibility to communicate will be blocked. It is comparable to a sort of "iron curtain." Is there any way to avoid the block? Yes, of course, it's very easy. With the help of various VPN systems, anonymizers. Browsers have special functions to avoid such blocks.
Apart from social networks, the blocked services list includes antivirus companies who have been protecting Ukrainian users from interventions for years: Kaspersky Lab, Kiev office of Dr.Web company. Without them, systems will become more vulnerable, especially when computer viruses spread so quickly. The ban was introduced even towards the 1C accounting system. The circus comes to town. The accounting program 1C has been banned in Ukraine! Given that all the organizations I know use it! It seems to me that an accounting, "warehouse Maidan" is ahead of us.
Meanwhile this accounting program is used by approximately 300,000 enterprises in Ukraine. The work of Ukrainian companies will be paralyzed. Accounting software is quite a delicate subject. To replace a program which is used by an enterprise daily, including the accounts, means to create major problems for Ukrainian businessmen who promote the 1C franchise, and use VKontakte for sales advertising. The sanctions were also introduced against Russian airlines, Aeroflot and UTair.
The Russian media was also affected by the ban: the entire VGTRK holding company, Rossiya Segodnya news agency, Nashe Radio musical radio station, TV channels Zvezda, TVC, NTV+, REN TV, RBC. Personal sanctions affected the head of the Rossiya Segodnya INA, Dmitri Kiselev. The list also includes the head of VGTRK, Oleg Dobrodeev Konstantin Ernst, the CEO of Channel One. Israeli journalist Avigdor Eskin is on the list, too. He's often featured on Russian channels. This is a medal for my work on the denazification of Ukraine which I've been doing for many years.
When Verkhovnaya Rada, not a housing bureau of Ivano-Frankovsk, but Verkhovnaya Rada declares the criminals of OUN UPA heroes, prohibiting even to criticize them, when monuments of Bandera and Shukhevych are everywhere in the streets, we understand that Ukraine isn't heading for Europe. It might be heading for the Europe which was convicted at the Nuremberg trials. The International Federation of Journalists in Brussels has already condemned Kiev's actions. IFG condemned the actions in Ukraine multiple times, concerning freedom of speech. We stand our ground that censorship can't be an adequate reaction.
All in all the list includes about 500 legal entities and 1,500 people. It's another manifestation of an unfriendly, and short-sighted policy towards the Russian Federation. The manifestation of such hostility once again emphasizes who can be behind the situation when Minsk agreements are in a deadlock. Currently, all social media is still accessible in Ukraine. The ban will come into force after the decree is published in the official newspaper, no later than June 1st. Internet users will remember this set of sanctions as the one Petr Poroshenko approved about 48 hours after his ambitious statement about the freedom in Ukraine. Never ever has Ukraine enjoyed such freedom.
