The situation of Russian broadcaster is such that it can't participate in Eurovision by decision of the Council of the Europen Union which had proposed a regulation banning Russia media only 2 days after the invasion of Ukraine started.
The regulations of the Council accepted by all Member States in the beggining of March 2022 prohibit any media in the EU to broadcast any content of Russian broadcaster or Russian private media.
The reason for ban on broadcasting is not only the invasion of Ukraine, but also the actions that Russia had undertaken against the EU Member States, e.g. interference with their elections, security services and armies, or plain hate speech such as TV hosts of Russian broadcaster making public threats of nuking Berlin, annexing Poland etc.
Therefore, to make it perfectly clear, it wasn't the EBU's moral that mandated them to ban Russia from participating in Eurovision. Those were presidents / PMs of all EU Member States who adopted these regulations.
Short communication from the Council in this regard:
On 6 June 2022, the Council of the European Union adopted a Decision and Regulation, which added three further media outlets to the list of Russian media outlets prohibited in the EU under an earlier Decision and Regulation adopted in March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (see IRIS 2022-3/6).
The media outlets added to the list are Rossiya RTR/RTR Planeta, Rossiya 24/Russia 24, and TV Centre International. RT- Russia Today English, RT- Russia Today UK, RT - Russia Today Germany, RT - Russia Today France, RT- Russia Today Spanish, and Sputnik are the media outlets which had been banned under the earlier March 2022 Decision and Regulation. Further, under the new Regulation, and new Decision, it is prohibited to “advertise products or services in any content produced or broadcast by the legal persons, entities or bodies” on the banned media list. Quite importantly, under Article 1(21) of the new Decision, and Article 1(14) of the new Regulation, this ban does not come into effect until 25 June 2022, provided that the Council, “having examined the respective cases, so decides by implementing act”.
Notably, under the earlier March 2022 Decision and Regulation, it was prohibited for “operators to broadcast or to enable, facilitate or otherwise contribute to broadcast, any content by the legal persons, entities or bodies [on the banned media list], including through transmission or distribution by any means such as cable, satellite, IP-TV, internet service providers, internet video-sharing platforms or applications, whether new or pre-installed.” Further, any “broadcasting licence or authorisation, transmission and distribution arrangement with the legal persons, entities or bodies” [on the banned media list] was suspended. While it was also prohibited to “participate, knowingly and intentionally, in activities the object or effect of which is to circumvent prohibitions”, including “by acting as a substitute for natural or legal persons, entities or bodies” on the banned media list. As such, these prohibitions will apply to Rossiya RTR/RTR Planeta, Rossiya 24/Russia 24, and TV Centre International from 25 June 2022, provided that the Council, “having examined the respective cases, so decides by implementing act”.
Finally, Recital 7 of the new Decision states that the new measures “should be maintained until the aggression against Ukraine is put to an end, and until the Russian Federation, and its associated media outlets, cease to conduct propaganda actions against the Union and its Member States”. Recital 13 states that the new measures “do not prevent the media outlets and their staff from carrying out activities in the Union other than broadcasting, such as research and interviews”.
Therefore, please, let's stop these salty parallels by which a TV broadcaster that threatens every second day the EU countries with annihilation in a nuclear war is the same thing as Israel - Hamas terrorist organization conflict.
