Eutelsat stops broadcasting Russian channel NTV Mir

The French satellite operator Eutelsat said it stopped on Wednesday, at the request of Arcom, the French media regulator, the broadcasting in Europe of the Russian channel NTV Mir, which compares.

“We have implemented Arcom’s request,” Eutelsat told AFP.

On its website, the regulator points out that “NTV Mir tends to repeatedly present not only the Ukrainian leadership and the Ukrainian army, but above all the Ukrainian population, as adhering to the Nazi ideology of the Third Reich and representing a extremely dangerous”.

The regulator, who has watched several broadcasts, cites, among other things, that of April 24 entitled “Enemy of the regime”, where it was notably indicated that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is “a comedian in the role of Hitler who ordered to launch a missile on women and children”.

The Eutelsat satellite which broadcasts NTV Mir “has wide pan-European coverage”, said Arcom.

Questioned by AFP, Eutelsat did not give a precise list of the countries concerned: “it then depends on the agreements that the channel has with the countries covered by the satellite”.

Arcom also indicated that “the channel remains broadcast by other non-European satellites with more limited European coverage”.

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Eutelsat has had to cut the signal several times from various Russian broadcasters.

At the beginning of March, the satellite operator had stopped, at the request of the 27 EU countries, the broadcasting of the news channels of the Russian group RT, accused of being instruments of “disinformation” of the Kremlin.

And at the end of June, it was the turn of two other Russian state broadcasters, RTR Planeta and Rossiya 24, again following a decision by the European Union. AFP