Kyivstar announces deterioration in communications in Crimea

Kyiv, August 06 (Navigator, Vladimir Mikhailov) – The Kyivstar operator wants to stay in Crimea, although the quality of communication may deteriorate. The company's director of corporate relations, Mikhail Shuranov, announced this at a press conference in Kyiv.

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“We plan to continue working in Crimea for as long as possible,” he said, answering a question from a Navigator correspondent. – Today we provide communications with Ukraine.

Now, unfortunately, we are faced with payment problems - the currency that was used in Crimea - the hryvnia - is turned off for us. There are cases of shutdown of our base stations - this is a blackout, or the inability to pay a lease agreement, which leads to a partial loss of coverage.

We are talking about some base stations, and they do not affect, so to speak, the shutdown of the city, but they can affect the deterioration of the quality of communication in one or another region. We use redirection to other base stations and try to maintain communication as much as possible.

But, I will say again, we understand that this problem is not being solved, and it will get worse. Those. There will come a time when these outages will be more noticeable. We have addressed the Ukrainian regulator several times with a request to provide us with recommendations, as the NBU once gave for the banking sector. But, unfortunately, we did not receive any recommendations other than the recommendation to report to them periodically. Therefore, on the one hand, we are awaiting the regulator’s recommendations, on the other hand, we are working in accordance with our license,” Shuranov said.

At the end of May, Kyivstar President Igor Lytovchenko used more aggressive rhetoric.

“We continue to work in Crimea for now. There are difficulties with the fact that we are required to pay in rubles - from electricity bills to stores where our services are sold. But we do not conduct dialogues with local authorities - if you start to negotiate with the occupiers, it means you admit that this is not your territory. And we work within the framework of the Ukrainian law “On Occupied Territories”. So we will work there as long as possible,” he said in an interview with Novoye Vremya magazine.