Oleksandr Turchynov: Promoting terrorism is a crime in any civilized country

Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine Oleksandr Turchynov will initiate an investigation and respective imposition of sanctions on Ukrainian electronic media that broadcast a "military parade" from occupied Donetsk under the heading "Broadcasting from the DPR".

"Today, when the whole world recalls millions of people who perished during the Second World War, some Ukrainian electronic media made a live broadcast of the so-called "military parade" from occupied Donetsk under the heading "Broadcasting from the DPR".

Spreading the information poison to sow dissension and despair, and playing with concepts to turn the liberation war into a civilian is one of the priorities of the hybrid war waged by Russia against us. And in this case, we can talk about a particular crime - the promotion of a terrorist organization.

Adequate counteraction to information aggression is a necessary and essential element of our country's defense. That is why I submitted an official letter to the SSU regarding the investigation of this offense and including those electronic media, which provided a live broadcast of the "celebration" of Russian occupation troops in Donetsk, to the sanction list.

In this case, it is not about freedom of speech. Cooperation with terrorists, complicity in terrorist activities, promoting terrorist structures is a crime in any civilized country.

I would also like to remind how many critics and "defenders" there were when we imposed sanctions against Russian electronic media and Russian social media, but today our Western partners uncompromisingly counter the information outlets of Russian propaganda in their countries, in particular, taking into account Ukrainian experience.

In Germany and France, harsh legislation is being developed and adopted to combat information terrorism and information fakes. And this happens in response to Russian information and propaganda aggression, which is already threatening the whole democratic world. Given that Ukraine is on the cutting edge in this war, we need to immediately implement their experience and best practices in Ukrainian legislation", - Mr. Turchynov said.