A French-based satellite operator is continuing to air Russian propaganda promoting the country’s invasion of Ukraine almost three months after it started.
Satellite operator Eutelsat will not terminate its coverage, despite dropping stations in the past, out of a commitment to “neutrality” in the conflict between the warring countries, and the company is “guided by sanctions and the decisions of its competent regulatory bodies,” according to Wired.
“If the European authorities impose new sanctions against Russian channels, we will stop their broadcast,” the company said. “At this stage, no regulator or other competent authority has asked us to stop broadcasting private Russian television channels in Russia.”
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Eutelsat manages five satellites covering Russia, with Tricolor and NTV+, two Russian operators relying on the satellites, airing channels through them. If it removed the companies from the one satellite it owns, it could replace both with independent journalism to broadcast in the country, according to the Denis Diderot Committee, which aims “to contribute to the restoration of the free flow of information, without war propaganda, between Europe and Russia with a view to providing support to Ukrainian, Russian and Belarusians civil societies.”
“It could create a great deal of creativity,” said Jim Phillipoff of the Diderot Committee. “And there’s a lot of exiled Russian journalists who would love to be a part of free television which is getting into Russia.”
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Inaccurate coverage of the war in Ukraine “is a function of the Russian government effectively crushing independent journalism and civil society here,” U.S. Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan said Friday, adding that what the Russians hear and see on Russian television “is an alternate universe.”
Eutelsat has not responded to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
