“Confession” of Russian official: “If Armenia doesn't like getting internet from us, let them get it from another place”

Yerevan/Mediamax/. A senior Russian official quite bluntly responded to the problems with access to some sites in Armenia blocked by Russian state structures.

Deputy Minister of Communications and Mass Media of Russia Alexey Volin touched upon the topic during his interview to Echo of Moscow radio station, Mediamax reports.

“No problems. Any user can choose the traffic where he wants to get. If they don't like getting it from us, let them get it from another place. It’s Armenia's problem how and through which lace they are linked to the Web”, stated the Russian official.

Izvestia paper wrote in January 2013 that Armenian residents became subject to Russian laws and norms as the main internet traffic of the republic passes the territory of Russia.

The newspaper noted that as a result, the Armenian users can't visit sites which are blacklisted in Russia.

“Subscribers already turned to us. We are changing the routing to the sites where the Armenian customers saw the Russian “plug”. In the future, we are likely to set the routing of the Armenian traffic the way all the sites banned in Russia are ruled out of it. ArmenTel operates in Armenia solely on Armenian laws”, then said the CIS PR Manager of "VimpelCom" Artem Minaev.

“MTS organizes operation of its networks in each of the countries of the MTS presence in accord with the local legislation. We haven't received complaints from "MTS-Armenia" subscribers for limiting access to any resources and we haven't registered it on our network. We use both our own trunk channels and partners' channels to transport traffic", said MTS spokeswoman Valeria Kuzmenko.

"Our colleagues from Armenia haven't turned to us yet and we suppose these issues will be settled on the level of operators. But if there is such a complaint, we are ready to study it and support solution to the problems", Roskomnadzor informed Izvestia in January.