Glorifying the freedom of speech, allegedly achieved in the "People's Republic", "acting minister of Information of the DNR" Igor Antipov has started speaking blatant lie. "There is not a single decree, order or any other document in the Republic, prohibiting broadcasting of any world channel. Accordingly, we cannot be accused of having banned a certain channel on the territory of the Republic", - he stated in an interview to one of the occupation media.
It is hard to say why Antipov needed to deny the obvious - Ukrainian TV channels and a number of websites are officially banned in the "DNR", what has more than one documented confirmation.
Attempts of the "DNR" to demand that providers turn off the Ukrainian channels in Donetsk began in June 2014. At that time, on behalf of the "Council of Ministers", 5 Kanal, 1 + 1, Donbass TV channel, UBR and NEWS 24 were banned. The statement about the necessity to comply with threats was made, in particular, by MATRIX provider company.
"If the demand is not fulfilled, measures will be taken to stop the retransmission of all Ukrainian channels. We do not guarantee the safety of property and personnel of your enterprise", - the militants' order was quoted in the statement of provider.
The website of one of the providers of Donetsk still has prohibitive documents of the sample of September 2014.
It is interesting that in 2014, part of the Ukrainian entertainment TV channels (children's, music, religious) were allowed, but in February 2016, the providers received an advanced list of TV channels, obligatory for cut off because of the "extremist information" .
As noted in the letter of the "Ministry of Information of the DNR" of February 9, 2016, "according to operational data, in the near future, Ukrainian authorities plan a set of measures to include blocks of extremist information in the network of Ukrainian TV channels that broadcast on the territory of the DNR (including topic-based - sports, children's, educational, etc.). In order to prevent the distribution of materials and extremist information, it is necessary to stop the broadcasting of Ukrainian TV channels before 10.02.2016".
Apparently, the broadcasts of Viasat Swedish media company also appeared on the list of banned ones – it is quite possible because of the old offense of 2009, when Roskomnadzor made claims about "extremist content" in Viasat History broadcasts, where "the information about the Great Patriotic War was misrepresented".
The limiting of broadcasting of "unfavorable" channels through cable networks in Russia failed at that time. But it worked out well in the "DNR" several years later.