“If the European authorities impose new sanctions on Russian channels, we will stop their broadcasting,” the company said. It added: “At this stage, no other regulator or authority has asked us to stop broadcasting private Russian TV channels in Russia.”
Philipoff and Lange have been conveying their appeal to politicians, but with minimal effect. “We have sent a letter to all the French members of the European Parliament,” Lange said. “Not a single answer.”
How, exactly, Paris or Brussels can force Eutelsat to block Russian channels is an open question. Lange and Philipoff say that if the European Parliament can ban English-speaking Sputnik and RT stations from their airwaves, sanctions will likely remove Russian-language TV from their satellites. In May, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen told the EU Parliament that it would ban three new broadcasters “of any shape or form, be it on cable, via satellite, on internet or through smartphone apps.”
Politico reported that the three broadcasters were Russian-language news networks coming to Europe, with some help from Eutelsat’s satellite.
Eutelsat told WIRED, “We know the intention of the European Union to sanction three Russian channels, two of which are broadcast on our satellites, and we are ready to stop broadcasting them as soon as it is regulated.” European correspondence is published.”
The United States recently imposed sanctions on three Russian-speaking television stations, including NTV (the flagship station of the NTV+ provider), after concluding that they were “spreading information misleading to cheer Putin’s war.” Those sanctions are likely to impact their foreign revenue, but not their operations in Russia.
Pursuing the satellites themselves would be a deeply troubling escalation. Moscow and Kyiv are targeting each other’s satellite communications.
Western intelligence agencies say that, in the hours before the invasion, Russian hackers aimed at the US satellite provider Viasat. “Although the primary target is believed to be the Ukrainian military, other customers have been affected, including private and commercial Internet users,” the UK’s National Cyber Center said in a statement. a link declared to the US and EU.
Earlier this week, just before Russia’s Victory Day celebrations – which provide Moscow’s prime opportunity to show strength amid stalled war – Ukraine’s State Special Communications Service announced reported that “[television] broadcasts from Russian satellites to the occupied Ukrainian regions were unexpectedly turned off”.
As WIRED reported, Ukraine is actively implementing Starlink terminalwhile Russian satellite communications are still Have trouble.
European cooperation is not limited to Eutelsat’s satellite television. Eutelsat owns two subsidiaries in Russia, including home internet provider Konnect. In return, the Russian state satellite operator owns a small stake in Eutelsat itself. (Company documents show that most of the 3.62% ownership stake corresponds to the Russian Satellite Communications Company, or RSCC.)
Meanwhile, some twenty countries make up the Intersputnik group with headquarters in Moscow, mainly in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Its members include the Czech Republic, Romania, Germany and Ukraine. In 2020, France announced its intention to join Intersputnik.
Intersputnik managed part of the Soviet satellite fleet, before being privatized after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Moscow’s influence over the organization is clear: Its chairman is a senior civil servant in the Russian government.
As the West continues its messy divorce from Russia, an organization like Intersputnik could allow Russia to launch and maintain satellite services, bolstering not only television but also internet services, military communications. , and geospatial images.
Lange and Philipoff of the Diderot Commission hope that this current war can create more open flows of information in the future — which is what informs their group’s tongue-in-cheek name. As its website explains: “On July 6, 1762, just nine days after the June 28 coup d’etat that put her on the throne, Catherine II invited the French philosopher Denis Diderot to Russia for publication. . L’encyclopedia, was banned in Paris. Diderot accepted her invitation and arrived in St.Petersburg in October 1773.”
If Russia doesn’t push back against French censorship, Encyclopediaone of the most important works of the Enlightenment, possibly never published.
