Russian telecom operators and IT companies fell under new EU sanctions
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Russian telecom operators and IT companies fell under new EU sanctions. In particular, Miranda Media, operating in Crimea and its annexed territories, and its structures Mir Telecom and Krymtelecom, as well as Ivan Zima, who headed the company until December 15, were included in the blacklist. Sanctions were imposed against cybersecurity solution providers Informzashita, BI.ZONE and Infotex. They are justified by the fact that the companies have licenses from Roskomnadzor and the FSB, and in relation to Miranda Media, the presence of equipment for filtering traffic. If these grounds are applied formally, many Russian companies will face sanctions. Market participants emphasize that they have long asked to classify the relevant registers.
The 12th EU sanctions package included Russian telecom operators operating in Crimea and new territories. These include Miranda-Media LLC, Mir Telecom LLC and Krymtelecom JSC. The European Union justifies the restrictions by the fact that the listed operators provide communication services in Crimea, Sevastopol, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions. Miranda Media also cites the presence of traffic filtering equipment “used by the Russian government to restrict access to information” as a reason.
The EU also imposed personal sanctions against Ivan Zima, whom the organization calls the general director of Miranda Media and Krymtelecom.
In the journal The EU said Mr Zima “is making a significant contribution to the Russian government’s efforts to restrict access to legitimate sources of information and implement censorship measures in Ukraine.” Miranda Media declined to comment.
According to SPARK-Interfax, Miranda-Media LLC is 80.001% owned by Krasnodar-based Luxtrans (the share has been pledged to Rossiya Bank since 2022) and 19.99% by Rostelecom. Mir Telecom and Krymtelecom JSC are 100% owned by Miranda Media. Former vice-president of Rostelecom Ivan Zima headed Miranda Media in May 2022, and in November became the head of Crimetelecom, Cnews wrote. However, on December 15, 2023 Interfax reported that Igor Zhizhikin was appointed general director of Miranda Media, although Mr. Zima’s dismissal was not announced.
In addition to telecom operators, a number of Russian IT companies also fell under EU sanctions: JSC NIP Informzashchita, LLC Safe Information Zone (BI.ZONE) and JSC Infotex (the companies do not comment on the situation).
Judging by the explanations, one of the key criteria for including both IT companies and telecom operators in the blacklists was the presence of state licenses. For example, in the explanations for Mir Telecom it is said that the company received “ten licenses to provide various telecommunications services”; there is a similar remark regarding Krymtelecom. About BI.ZONE, Informzashita and Infotex, it is said that the companies have FSB licenses for the development of cryptographic tools and the provision of services in the field of encryption (such licenses are required by any company to supply IT solutions to the public sector).
Experts and market participants interviewed by Kommersant consider the sanctions to be expected and not too burdensome.
“Crimean operators simply won’t notice, because almost all possible sanctions have already been imposed,” says Zelax President Sergei Sukhman. Kommersant’s interlocutor at the market emphasizes that “the entire Crimean region has been under sanctions since 2014” and local operators have not received new equipment for construction since then, only used equipment from third countries. In his opinion, with the introduction of new sanctions the situation will not essentially change. A source from one of the operators only notes the risks of removing mobile applications of local companies from foreign stores.
However, IT market participants are concerned about the fact that the EU, when introducing sanctions, actually relied on open government databases of licenses. Since the summer of this year, market participants have been discussing with each other and with relevant regulators the idea of closing public access to the register of licenses issued by FSTEC and other departments, emphasizes the top manager of one of the providers of information security solutions, but “things did not go further than discussions” .
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