In December 2020 the Crimean Human Rights Group held a new monitoring of the FM radio station broadcasting in the north of peninsula. The situation with receiving the Ukrainian FM signal became worse, comparing to the previous monitoring of September 2020. In December Ukrainian FM radio station signal was recorded only in 7 of 19 settlements. In this September the Ukrainian broadcasting was accessible in 12 settlements from the same list.
For instance, a signal of Ukrainian radio stations heard earlier, was jammed in Armiansk, Krasnoarmeyskoye, Zavet Leninskyi, Solenoye ozero, Yermakovo, Lobanovo, Martynovka.
The Ukrainian stations can’t be still heard in such settlements as Vishnevka, Ovoschnoye, Zelenaya Niva, Krasnoperekopsk, Ishun’.
In all these settlements Russian FM stations broadcast their programs on the Ukrainian radio frequencies.
In Zarechnoye, Dzhankoy, Pridorozhnoye, Voinka only one Ukrainian radio station may be heard.
2 radio stations may be heard in Novoaleksandrovka and Istochnoye, and 6 Ukrainian FM radio stations may be heard in Predmostnoye.
Near the checkpoint “Chongar”, on the occupied territory of the peninsula, you can listen to programs of 4 Ukrainian FM radio, and 2 Ukrainian radio stations can be heard at Crimea side near the checkpoint “Chaplynka”.
And the same time in 13 settlements of 19 a simultaneous broadcasting of two stations: Ukrainian and Russian at some frequencies was recorded. Due to such jams one can’t listen to the programs on these frequencies. This is an evidence of a purposeful blocking of the Ukrainian FM broadcasting by the Russian radio stations.
We would remind that in September the Crimean Human Rights Group informed that a new TV and Radio tower had been installed on the occupied territory of Crimea close to CHAPLYNKA checkpoint.
Such breakdown with the Ukrainian radio signal broadcasting in this area may affirm that the new structure has been put into operation, inter alia, to block the Ukrainian broadcasting in the peninsula.
The CHRG monitors checked, with car radios, what Ukrainian FM radio stations might be heard in 19 settlements of the northern Crimea: towns of Armiansk, Krasnoperekopsk, and Dzhankoy, and settlements located along the main roads – Ishun’, Zelenaya Niva, Vishnevka, Krasnoarmeyskoye, Istochnoye, Novoaleksandrovka, Martynovka, Solionoye Ozero, Zavet Leninskiy, Yermakovo, Pridorozhnoye, Predmostnoye, Zarechnoye, Ovoschnoye, Lobanovo, and Voinka.
At the moment of monitoring the Ukrainian FM broadcasting from Chaplynka in the northern Crimea is jammed by the following Russian radio stations:
KRYM – 95.3 frequency of KULTURA Radio
MORE – 96.4 frequency of PERETS FM
SPUTNIK – 102.3 frequency of MEYDAN
MAYAK – 103.5 frequency of KHAYAT
VATAN SEDASY – 106.4 frequency of PROMIN’
Broadcasting of the Ukrainian FMs via the Broadcasting Tower located in Chongar in the Northern Crimea is jammed by such Russian stations:
SPUTNIK – 100.7 frequency of UKRAINSKOYE RADIO
VESTI – 102.6 frequency of PROMIN’
KRYM – 103 frequency of ARMIYA FM
MORE – 104.1 frequency of RADIO NV
VESTI – 105.9 frequency of KRYM.REALII
VATAN SEDASY – 107.8 frequency of KHERSON FM
The Crimean Human Rights Group holds regularly such monitoring missions in the northern Crimea. Their results prove a consistent violation of the right of Crimean residents to have an access to information, namely, the independent Ukrainian media. Blocking the Ukrainian websites and radio stations by the RF was also condemned in the UN GA resolution ‘”Situation of Human Rights in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the City of Sevastopol, Ukraine” adopted on December 16, 2020.
Such actions of the occupation authorities must be stopped immediately, and the broadcasting of the Ukrainian radio stations in Crimea must be restored. Ukraine should become more proactive in seeking for international legal tools to hold Russia liable for such actions.
