Approximately 34% of residents of annexed Crimea use unlicensed satellite receivers known as “Gorynych,” according to the newspaper Kommersant, citing a report by the research company Grifon Expert, which was presented at a meeting in Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, on April 27.
The devices receive signals from multiple satellites and allow users to watch Ukrainian television channels. The report’s authors said one-third of Crimea’s residents use such receivers, while only 17% of residents have licensed satellite receivers and 49% do not have access to satellite television.
“The more access respondents have to alternative content, the more often their opinions differ from the ‘average,’ grow more negative, and become less stable,” the report warns.
Following the meeting, Russia’s Ministry of Digital Development was instructed to assess the scale of use of these devices and address their prevalence. The ministry noted that bans on the sale and use of similar equipment had previously been introduced in Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions of Ukraine. No such restrictions are currently in place in Crimea.
The bans were accompanied by equipment replacement programs. Under the “Russian World” project, residents receive free satellite dishes carrying Russian TV channels in exchange for giving up “Gorynych” devices. Occupation-controlled media said tens of thousands of such antennas have been installed in the Luhansk Region alone, while more than 25,000 equipment sets were replaced in the Donetsk region in 2024.
Media market sources cited by Kommersant link the prevalence of “Gorynych” devices in Crimea to the absence of similar replacement programs, a shortage of legitimate satellite services, and user habits formed before 2014. Some residents were also unwilling to pay for subscriptions.
At the end of April, Russia banned the import of foreign satellite communications equipment, including Starlink terminals, for six months, citing national security concerns.
