On Wednesday, a message appeared on the channel, stating that it was unavailable for technical reasons. Following this, the channel displayed banned Russian songs and other prohibited propaganda materials in Latvia. The incident lasted for several minutes.

The event was caused by a hacking attack, as confirmed by the Latvian cybersecurity agency Cert.lv. Reports indicated a disruption in the satellite signal.

“The satellite that guarantees the transmission of the Freedom channel does not belong to Latvia or Ukraine; it is managed by, if I am not mistaken, a French company, but the attack affected satellite communication,” said the deputy head of Cert.lv, Varis Teivans.

Freedom is a Russian-language Ukrainian state television channel broadcasting abroad.

Latvia is collaborating with Ukrainian special services, which are investigating the circumstances surrounding this incident. As LSM emphasized, this was not the first cyberattack on the channel.

Experts warn that attempts to disrupt the operation of stations publishing content disliked by the Kremlin will continue.