"In business, they decide not instructions, but money"

Ukrainian experts explain whether the providers can make a decree on blocking popular Russian sites

On May 16, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed a decree on new sanctions against Russian companies. According to the document, not only the activities of individual companies, but also the VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks, the Yandex search engine and its products, Mail.ru services - these sites are included in the ten most popular resources in Ukraine. The largest Ukrainian fixed communication operator Ukrtelecom has already begun to block sites; It will be held in stages and will take, according to the company's forecasts, about a week. Medusa asked Ukrainian experts what they think about blocking - and whether it will be possible to implement it.

Oksana Romanyuk

Executive Director of the Ukrainian Institute of Mass media

The decision of the president [of Ukraine] was unequivocally unexpected and sudden. I do not understand how it is argued. If we talk about economic reasons - they say, Russia earns on our users, and we have war - then many private enterprises had pages there. It turns out that these are sanctions on their citizens.

Whether someone spent sociology, this is another question. Because if we are talking about blocking Russian banks as part of sanctions, then this does not enter the private territory of citizens. And blocking social networks concerns personal interests. It is clear that it will cause a huge negative.

In the morning we sat down to deal with lawyers and noticed an interesting nuance. In Ukraine, there is no legal mechanism now to embody this decision [on blocking] to life. There is no locking mechanism, there are no sanctions for failure to fulfill the decree. There is only one prescribed mechanism - a ban through the court. That is, it is necessary to amend the legislation.

Perhaps someone will be fully complied with the decree, but this is the good will of the provider himself. And the providers, I think, will definitely be against blocking - VKontakte and Odnoklassniki make them traffic.

Mikhail Chaplyga

The representative of the authorized Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights ( Quote for the Agency "UNIAN")

Our legislation does not provide for a restriction of access to sites without a court decision. That is, if there is a solution, then access can be limited. Another procedure does not exist. In relation to legal entities, restrictions may be adopted. Therefore, it will be interesting for me to see how the Internet providers will follow the presidential decree.

Tatyana Popova

Former Deputy Minister of Information Policy of Ukraine

I saw with my own eyes in the “Odnoklassniki” and “VKontakte” of the group that called to kill Ukrainians. There really was content that Ukraine has the right to ban. In the same way as on Mail.ru and on Yandex there were articles with Diffamation about Ukraine. This is the same content that is on Russian channels prohibited by the court in Ukraine.

On the other hand, I consider it wrong what the president did. It was necessary to do this through the court. So it would be more logical and, at least, the president would not cause partial rejection of a particular audience.

The act is brave. From the point of view of information security, this is the right step. But in how it was made, in my opinion, there is a mistake.

Gennady Gulak

Ph.D.

It is quite difficult to block sites, as you know. Powerful resources will be required to block them. Even if such an attempt is made, it is impossible to say how much time it will take. The fact is that in Ukraine providers do not obey the state. First you need to negotiate with them. And in business they decide not instructions, but money. And if they [providers] from blocking access to these resources will lose traffic, then they will not rush to fulfill the decree. In addition, there is a political component. The decision will cause a negative reaction in society - and this will negate all the positive points of blocking.

Alexander Fedienko

Chairman of the Internet Association of Ukraine

Most likely, resources that have fallen under the sanctions will fall out of the information and killer space of Ukraine. It is possible to block them - there are no global technical problems in this. Most likely, this will not work very quickly. But over time it will be possible. There will be a layer of users who understands what proxy server is and so on. These people will be able to get around the lock.

Tatyana Popova

Head of the Council of the Association "Telecommunication Chamber of Ukraine"

The technical capabilities of blocking depend on a specific performer. Theoretically, since the decree is written by the URL, locking is possible. But it is easily bypassed by users. Almost any blocking can be circumvented - and Russia's experience is excellent confirmation. Of course, some part of the population does not have such an opportunity-there is simply not enough skill for working with a computer. But according to my estimates, this is a small part of the population.

Mikhail Shuranov

Director of Corporate Communications Ukrtelecom

Ukrtelecom complies with the requirements of the Decree of the President of Ukraine on the ban on the provision of access services to the web resources specified in the text of the Decree. The process is quite complicated, requires a certain time, taking into account a significant amount of resources. The work has already begun. They will be held in stages and, according to preliminary assessment of specialists, will last from a few days to a week.

Press Service of Kyivstar

Internet provider and mobile operator

Kyivstar is a company that works only in the legal field of Ukraine. So far, all that we can tell you is that we study the presidential decree.

Ukrainian representative offices Mail.ru, Yandex and VKontakte published the same comments as their Russian offices.

Juliana Skibitskaya, Kiev