According to media reports, all eight members of the National Council abstained from voting.
The Iceland channel already had registration using Over-The-Top (OTT) technology, which granted it the right to official online broadcast. But the company sought to obtain registration as an OTT provider in order to distribute not only its channel, but an entire network of 52 TV channels throughout Ukraine.
The National Council reported at the end of February that the application of Iceland LLC was to be considered at a meeting on March 5.
Context
Petrov is known as a “black political strategist”; he appears in a number of scandals, this is discussed in detail in the investigation of the founder of the publication “GORDON” Dmitry Gordon, published in February 2024. In particular, the program showed that in 2015–2016, Petrov said on air that the Ukrainian army was shooting at peaceful Donbass cities, admired the terrorist, leader of the “DPR” Alexander Zakharchenko, and called the war that the Russian Federation unleashed against Ukraine a civil one.
On January 12, People's Deputy from Golos Yaroslav Zheleznyak reported in a blog on YouTube that Petrov was booked from mobilization in July 2025 as a government employee Institution “National War Memorial Cemetery”. Petrov was employed full time, in the third and fourth quarters of 2025 he received a salary of 70 thousand UAH, the people’s deputy indicated. The director of this government agency is Yaroslav Pronyutkin, according to Zheleznyak, has been friends with Petrov for a long time.
Petrov’s co-host Sergei Ivanov also received a reservation, only he got a job in a private company, the people’s deputy found out. Petrov and Ivanov regularly go on air on Iceland, so it remained unclear how they combine this work with the positions for which they were booked, Zheleznyak noted.
Information about these employments and bookings caused a stir in the community. After the publication of data about probably fake employment at NVMK, the Verkhovna Rada called for the report of the Minister of Veterans Affairs of Ukraine Natalya Kalmykova, the ministry launched an internal investigation, and people's deputies and the military were indignant and demanded the dismissal of Petrov.
On January 20, the day before the expiration of the reservation period, Petrov was fired from NVMK at his own request, the government agency was informed. Kalmykova announced on the same day that from now on, the heads of institutions subordinate to the Ministry of Veterans will regularly inform the department about personnel decisions in order to prevent the situation that has developed with the presenter.
On January 14, the SBU opened criminal proceedings about possible high treason under martial law on the part of Petrov – he could provide assistance to the Russian Federation in subversive activities against Ukraine.
