On 13 September 2024, the office of the Prosecutor-General of Russia designated Poland-based TV channel Belsat as an “undesirable organization” in Russia, independent media reported quoting a statement by the office. According to Russian authorities, “one of the key tasks [of Belsat] is to discredit Russian domestic and foreign policies, create a negative image of [Russia] and criticize the integration processes [between] Russia and Belarus.”
The office of the Prosecutor-General also criticized Belsat’s reporting on Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and accused the TV channel of “actively cooperating with and distributing materials from organizations included in [Russia’s] register of foreign agents.”
Founded in 2006, Belsat is based in Poland and acts as Belarus’ most popular independent TV channel. While it was never able to broadcast to TV sets in Belarus, the channel is active online, despite access blocks and bans on interactions with its content imposed by Belarusian authorities in 2020-21. Belsat especially gained influence during the wave of mass protests in Belarus following the fraudulent reelection of Alexander Lukashenko in 2020. The channel is organizationally part of Poland’s public broadcaster TVP.
The designation of an organization as “undesirable” in Russia entails a ban on any interactions with it by Russian citizens. In the case of media, this regulation bans journalists from working with an “undesirable” outlet, while media consumers are banned from any engagement, such as sharing the outlet’s publications, or liking its social media publications, or subscribing to its social media channels.