Kyiv launches bilingual TV channel for Russian-occupied Crimea, eastern Ukraine:
By RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service
Ukraine's Culture Ministry has unveiled a new television channel that has started broadcasting in Russia-occupied Crimea and parts of the easternmost Donetsk and Luhansk regions that the government in Kyiv doesn't control.
Called Dom (Home), the channel started the pilot broadcast on March 1, said Yulia Ostrovska, the acting CEO of public broadcaster UATV.
During the presentation in Kyiv, she noted that "54 percent of people in the occupied territories don't have access to Ukrainian television channels and 43 percent can't access Ukrainian websites."
One of the channel's goals is the "de-occupation of consciousness" of Ukrainians, Ostrovska added.
It was in reference to Russia's takeover of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula in early 2014 and subsequent support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed more than 13,000 people.
However, the channel might not be available to residents of Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine due to electronic warfare methods, said Mykyta Poturayev, a member of parliament who took part in delivering the presentation.
The channel will get its content from the existing major Ukrainian TV networks, including about 15 percent from the studio that brought current President Volodymyr Zelenskiy fame as an actor and comedian.
As such, it will be available to digital, not analogue, TV owners.
Anchors on the channels will speak both Ukrainian, the state language, and Russian, the predominant language spoken in eastern Ukraine and Crimea.
News also will be delivered in the Ukrainian and Russian languages and cover national and regional news.
Poturayev said the editorial policy of Dom will not be to repeat Russian propaganda messages.
"Nobody on this channel will talk about 'rebels,' 'civil war,' and will not call Russian tanks 'pink unicorns' who came with love, from Russia with love," he said.
The combined 2020 budget for the channel and state-run Ukrinform news agency is 257 million hryvnyas ($10 million).
Among the consultants employed at the channel are people from the 112 Ukrayina channel, a TV network affiliated with pro-Russian lawmaker Viktor Medvedchuk, whose daughter's godfather is Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to deputy presidential office head Kyrylo Tymoshenko, who also took part in the presentation. (w/Ukrayinska pravda and Hromadske)
We are now closing the live blog for today, but we'll be back again tomorrow morning to follow all the latest developments. Until then, you can keep up with all our other Ukraine coverage here.
Here's another item from RFE/RL's news desk (with reporting by Mike Eckel in Prague):
U.S. Calls On Russia To Hand Over MH17 Evidence, Let Whelan Go
The United States has called on Russia to hand over suspects in the 2014 downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a disaster that cost the lives of all 298 people aboard, as their trial is set to start in a few days.
"It is long past time for Russia to comply, to reveal what it knows and to turn over those individuals who have been indicated in these cases," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Christopher Robinson said in an interview with RFE/RL during a visit to Prague on March 2.
Russian citizens Igor Girkin, Oleg Pulatov, and Sergei Dubinsky, and Ukrainian national Leonid Kharchenko have been charged by Dutch prosecutors with shooting down the Boeing 777 with a Russian-made BUK missile as it flew over territory held by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The men are unlikely to be present at their first hearing scheduled for March 9 at a high-security courthouse near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. The men are all believed to be hiding in Russia, which does not extradite its citizens, or in separatist-controlled territory in Ukraine.
A fifth suspect, Volodymyr Tsemakh, was among 35 prisoners sent to Moscow from Kyiv in the September 7 swap of 70 people captured during the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
A Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has concluded that Russia's 53rd Antiaircraft Missile Brigade had transported the Buk in 2014 to and from Ukraine.
Robinson said the array of public information available indicates that the MH17 downing happened in an area under Russian control. Russia denies involvement in the incident.
"This is another case where Russia engages in aggression, Russia fails to reveal the truth, it puts out disinformation and lies and tries to distort the truth," Robinson said. "I think Russia has behaved reprehensibly in this issue."
The JIT had pleaded with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to keep Tsemakh in Ukrainian custody. Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly insisted that Tsemakh be included in the exchange, or the swap would be called off.
MH17 took off from Amsterdam for Kuala Lumpur on July 17, 2014. About two-thirds of the passengers were Dutch nationals.
Election Interference, Whelan Incarceration
Robinson also said that the United States has repeatedly warned Russia not to interfere in U.S. elections and called on the Kremlin to release Paul Whelan, a former Marine held in a Moscow prison on espionage charges.
U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller concluded in March 2019 following a two-year investigation that Russia carried out a broad campaign to interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections, including through hacking into the Democratic National Committee computer system.
U.S. intelligence officials last month told the Trump administration and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders that Russia is interfering in the elections to support them, The New York Times and Washington Post reported. However, the intelligence officials did not say how Russia was interfering and did not give any evidence.
Russia has also been accused of interfering in other nations’ elections. The Kremlin has denied the accusations.
"There can be no improvement in the U.S.-Russia bilateral relationship until Russia ceases its broad campaign to support malign activities around the world, not just against the United States but against our allies and partners," Robinson said.
Russia arrested Whelan in Moscow in December 2018 for possessing a flash drive that contained state secrets, according to local media.
Whelan said he was given the drive by a Russian acquaintance in an apparent setup. A Moscow City Court recently extended his detention until March 29, 2020.
"They have not produced evidence [of his guilt]," the deputy secretary said. "It is long past time to let Paul Whelan go."
With reporting by Mike Eckel in Prague