Ukraine: President Zelensky shut down three pro-Russian TV channels
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in London during a visit to Boris Johnson on October 8, 2020. AP - Aaron Chown
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The Kiev authorities decided to ban three national television channels with a pro-Russian editorial orientation on Tuesday evening.
These channels broadcast the messages of the Kremlin in Ukraine and the Ukrainian authorities consider it an attack on its national security.
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With our correspondent in Kiev,
Stéphane Siohan
Tuesday evening, shortly before midnight, a black curtain fell on television channels 112, NewsOne and Zik, now banned from the Ukrainian small screen.
President
Volodymyr Zelensky
followed the recommendations of his National Security Council and therefore decided to ban these three channels, considered as organs of propaganda and disinformation, "
in the service of an aggressor state
", that is to say - say the Russian Federation.
112, NewsOne and Zik belong to Taras Kozak, a pro-Russian deputy, but they are in reality controlled by Viktor Medvedchuk, a close friend of Vladimir Putin, who is the main relay of the Kremlin in Ukraine, and who from acquisition to acquisition, has taken control of much of the Ukrainian media landscape.
Lately, the new US administration has been pushing for Kiev to get rid of pro-Russian agents of influence, but the young Ukrainian president himself has an ambiguous relationship with them.
He surrounded himself in power
with figures linked to the former Yanukovych regime
, but pro-Russian television channels continued to mistreat him.
As a result, the president's popularity is at an all-time low, and if new parliamentary elections take place soon, the pro-Russian party would come out on top.
Zelensky himself used an oligarchic chain to become head of state, but now he in turn seeks to protect himself from the nuisance power of these propaganda chains.
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Ukraine
Volodymyr Zelensky
Russia
Media