The Latvian National Electronic Mass Media Council (NEPLP) stripped Russian independent TV Rain of its license on Wednesday.

Dzyadko writes that the decision caused flashbacks from when the channel was removed from the cable networks of the Russian Federation eight and a half years ago. He adds that TV Rain will continue broadcasting on YouTube where it was 13 million monthly viewers.

The NEPLP fined TV Rain €10,000 for displaying a map in which occupied Crimea was marked as Russian territory and for calling the Russian army "our army" in a piece that mentioned how viewers could help provide recruits to the illegal invasion force with supplies and equipment, the Twitter account of the Latvian watchdog reported on December 2.

The editor-in-chief refers to the position of NEPLP, according to which the right to broadcast of TV Rain has been revoked in the context of national security and public order, as a farce and claims that TV Rain could not have shown a map depicting Crimea as part of Russia during its weather report as it has not done weather reports since 2014.

He also writes that the network promptly fired host Aleksey Korostelev following his remarks.

Korostelev was fired after he said, when promoting the station's hotline for information about Russian mobilization : "Many of the stories sent to us or to the Telegram bot are now public. We hope that we can help many service members, for example, with equipment and basic amenities at the front."

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