As the world wonders will Vladimir Putin order an attack and while Ukrainian President Zelensky addresses the nation reassuring that the country and the army are prepared for any scenario, Ukraine’s national commercial TV channel STB is busy promoting a new show called My Secret. This premiere, however, is different than others because the channel is hiding the fact that it has acquired NTV Russia’s talk format Secret for a Million.

STB is actually promoting its new production as “own development”. Contacted by CEETV, NTV confirmed unofficially that this is a licensed version of their format. As to why STB is presenting the new show as its own concept is not clear as yet. Without a doubt, announcing an adaptation of a Russian format coming from “propagandist channel NTV”, as the Russian net is called in Ukrainian media, would cause a public uproar.

It is also strange why industry media in Ukraine have not covered STB’s plans to launch this new show. This was also the case with Novy’s adaptation of Where’s the Logic? – a quiz from TNT Russia, owned by Gazprom Media as well. It was only after the show was launched that Ukrainian media “discovered” that it is a Russian format, and only after shooting all episodes host Serhiy Prytula suddenly found out about it and quit the show.

Further examples of the cooperation not only of StarLightMedia (co-produces the series The Dog with NTV) but also 1+1 Media (adapting Russian series) and President Zelensky’s former company Kvartal 95 (selling series and format rights) clearly show that the big Ukrainian TV players continue to do business with “the aggressor state” as they call Russia in their newscasts and official statements.

There is another, more important question, however: What have President Zelensky, with his extensive TV background, and Minister of Culture, Oleksandr Tkachenko, former CEO of 1+1 Media, done to stop this “underground business” with Russian TV companies who are on Ukraine’s sanctions list.