OREANDA-NEWS. According to Bogdan Bezpalko, a member of the Presidium of the Council for Interethnic Relations under the President of the Russian Federation, the closure of TV channels in Ukraine without a court decision indicates that there is no freedom of speech in the country.

On February 2, in the evening, Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved the decision of the NSDC and signed a decree on sanctions for a period of five years against three Ukrainian TV channels 112.Ukraina, NewsOne and ZIK and the deputy of the Verkhovna Rada from the Opposition Platform - For Life faction Taras Kozak, who owns these channels. The channels subject to sanctions are in opposition to the authorities, and most often deputies from the Opposition Platform - For Life party spoke at them.

At the same time, according to the expert, it is even more indicative that some of these TV channels - for example, "112. Ukraine" - emerged simultaneously with the so-called "revolution of dignity". The politician believes that “these are the TV channels that strongly supported the 'revolution of dignity' and, in principle, everything that is happening in Ukraine. But, apparently, even the degree of objectivity that is present in these TV channels and is reflected in their materials is enough for Zelensky to block them ".

According to Bogdan Bezpalko, sanctions against television channels may partly aggravate the decline in Zelensky's rating, but "this is unlikely to be a critical factor." He specified that there is a huge number of TV channels in Ukraine, therefore, the cessation of broadcasting of several of them "is unlikely to be strongly noted by the population."