Moscow, April 4, 2022
Photo: vedomosti.ru
In July 2020, Google blocked access to the YouTube account of Tsargrad, a Russian Orthodox channel owned by the sanctioned Russian businessman Konstantin Malofeev.
Now the tech giant is paying for that move to the tune of nearly $12 million (1 billion rubles), and Malofeev intends to use the cash “to support Russia's special military operation to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine.”
Last year, a Moscow court ruled that Google pay a daily 100,000 ruble fine for blocking the account, and last month, Google lost its appeal, reports Reuters.
The fine stopped compounding when it hit 1 billion rubles last month, but the daily fines will start again in September if the channel isn’t restored.
Tsargrad reported on Friday that it had received the $11,896,970, which will be used to support Russian soldiers, refugees, and others, “Because we don’t divide the interests of Tsargad from the interests of the fatherland at all.” The Tsargrad reports do not specify how it intends to support soldiers—medically, militarily, or otherwise
“It’s just that the unholy incomes of the globalist Russophobes should serve for the benefit of Russian volunteers, refugees and all victims of the Nazi Bandera, who broadcast their ideology of hatred through YouTube and Google with impunity,” Malofeev commented.
The funds, which were in Google accounts within Russia, were blocked by bailiffs in accordance with the court ruling.
Should the fines begin again in September, the channel will go to other countries with a writ of execution if need be, to seize funds from Google accounts, the channel said.
Malofeev has been personally sanctioned by the U.S., EU, and Canada since 2014, and in 2017, Ukraine put him on the international wanted list, accused of creating illegal paramilitary groups in Donbass.
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