Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s decision on May 16 to block access in Ukraine to several popular Russian websites has sharply divided opinion in the country.
While some saw the move as a blow to democratic rights, others saw it as a long-overdue measure against what they believe are Kremlin-controlled tools of influence on Ukrainian society.
Poroshenko’s decree updated the list of companies and persons that fall under Ukraine’s sanctions against Russia. A total of 1,228 firms and 468 individuals fall under new sanctions as of May 16.
But most of the public discussion concerned the blocking of access to the hugely popular social networks — VKontakte and Odnoklassniki — along with search engine and tech company Yandex.
According to the decree, Ukrainian internet providers are now to cut access to the sites, although not all providers have the means to do so.
However, some have already started implementing the decree.
Ukraine’s monopoly fixed-line telephone company and internet provider Ukrtelecom has begun to cut it customers’ access to the websites, with Ukrtelecom spokesperson Mykhailo Shuranov saying his company would fulfill president’s decree over the next week.
Ukrainian cellphone operator Kyivstar told the Kyiv Post it would do same, but added that it did not yet have the technology to limit clients’ access to the Russian websites.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians and foreigners vented their views on the president’s move on the internet.
Those opposing the measure included Aric Toler, an analyst at Bellingcat. Using Russian social media sites like VKontakte, the UK-based online investigative team has uncovered information about the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, Russia’s cross border shelling of Ukraine in August of 2014, and Russia’s equipping of its proxy forces in the Donbas over the past three years.
“I can’t believe it’s real — it’s one of the dumbest things Poroshenko has done,” Toler told the Kyiv Post. “It will definitely influence us — we’ll have to change our methods, or just shift away from Ukraine all together, honestly.”
But most of all, he thinks, the move could adversely affect the lives of civilians in the Donbas, as “it’s probably used more than anything for communication there.”
VKontakte is used by people who live in the frontline to find out where humanitarian aid is being handed out, to get information about fighting, and to communicate with friends and relatives who live outside the war zone, Toler said.
Another segment that may be affected is people who use VKontakte or Odnoklassniki for business. E-commerce expert Iryna Kholod said many small-sized businesses that today retail through the Russian social networks will have to change their communication channels, switching to Facebook, Instagram and marketplaces like Ukrainian website OLX.
But there won’t be any panic, she says.
“Few people use only one communication channel to retail — usually if there’s a page on VKontakte, there’s also one on Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram,” Kholod told the Kyiv Post.
“People will find their audience on other networks.”
But while small entrepreneurs can adapt and continue working in Ukraine, the big Russian tech corporation Yandex is left with no choice — the company will have to leave.
Yandex has been operating in Ukraine for 12 years, developing various services including maps of Ukrainian cities, navigation tools and taxi service Yandex.Taxi.
“All this time we have been abiding by Ukrainian law, doing our best to create quality products,” Yandex’s press service announced on May 16. “These sanctions are against 11 million Ukrainian (Yandex) users… and thousands of Ukrainian organisations that use our technologies to develop their businesses.”
Yandex said it was a big company and would not be derailed by the decree.
“The main victim of the sanctions is the Ukrainian user.”
But Ukrainian lawyer Vitalii Vlasiuk, a founder of ePravo, which focuses on laws affecting the tech sector, thinks otherwise: he said Ukrainians would manage fine without Russian networks and other tech companies. As for the law, the blocking of Russian websites isn’t censorship, he said.
“The decree breaches neither the Ukrainian Constitution nor the European Convention on Human Rights, as it’s being introduced for national security purposes,” Vlasiuk told the Kyiv Post. “This is legal, and internet providers are obliged to carry out what is written in the decree.”
But Vlasiuk also said that the Ukrainian law does not restrict the use of technologies like Virtual Private Networks, which create secure, encrypted connections and enable internet users to conceal from which country they are accessing a website – a way to get around bans imposed by the authorities on foreign websites.
“There’s no law on that, but it would certainly be considered lawless (behavior). On the other hand, I can’t imagine how anyone could impose any control over the internet.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected].
