The International Telecommunication Union has called on Russia to immediately stop interfering with European satellites. This was reported by the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting.
The National Council appealed to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) regarding the interference with the satellite signal of Ukrainian television programmes, demanding a quick and clear response to the aggressor's actions. The Chairman of the National Council, Olha Herasymyuk, also raised this issue at meetings of the European Platform of Regulators (EPRA), the Steering Committee of the Council of Europe on Media and Information Society (CDMSI), and held separate talks with media regulators in France and Luxembourg. As a result, this issue came under the close attention of the ITU and was considered at a meeting of the Radio Regulatory Board (RRB).
Over the past three months, we have seen a new stage of the Russian Federation's information war against Ukraine - interference with the satellite signal of Ukrainian TV channels. By sending a signal of much higher power to the satellite, which leads to changes in the signal of Ukrainian channels, Russia inserts its propaganda programmes into the programmes of Ukrainian channels.
Between 20 February and 9 May 2024, at least 12 cases of interference with satellite communications were recorded. The sources of these interference, according to operators, were located in the Moscow region of the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea, and the territories of the southern regions of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia.
These actions led to interference or replacement of the original signal with a hostile one on more than 40 Ukrainian TV channels and one radio station broadcast via ASTRA-4A and EUTELSAT HOTBIRD satellites.
The National Council informed a number of international organisations about these attacks, including the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the European Telecommunications Satellite Organisation (EUTELSAT IGO), the Council of Europe's Steering Committee on Media and Information Society (CDMSI), UNESCO, the European Regulators' Group for Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA), the European Platform for Regulators (EPRA) and the Black Sea Forum of Broadcasting Regulators (BRAF).
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), during the Radio Regulations Board (RRB), considered a series of complaints from Ukraine, France, the Netherlands, Sweden and Luxembourg regarding Russia's interference with European satellites in recent months.
The complaining parties said that the GPS jamming incidents threatened air traffic control and interrupted children's TV channels to show "violent footage of the war in Ukraine".
In a statement, the ITU Radio Regulations Committee noted that the interference with French and Swedish satellite networks may have been caused by sources located in the Moscow, Kaliningrad and Pavlivka areas, which is "extremely worrying and unacceptable".
The ITU condemned a number of incidents of Russian interference with European satellite systems and called on Russia to immediately cease any deliberate actions aimed at creating harmful interference with the frequency assignments of other administrations.
Today, Olha Herasymyuk, Chairman of the National Council, will raise this issue in discussions with her European colleagues at the session of the European Regulators of Audiovisual Media Services (ERGA).