The Moscow courts website reported on Thursday that the Khamovnichesky District Court had made a legal ruling that has ordered Yandex to remove images of the Ryazan Oil Refinery Company (RNPK), a subsidiary of Rosneft, from its maps service.
A lawsuit brought by Russia’s prosecutor’s office said that as the plant, which is located at the Yuzhny Industrial Hub in Ryazan, is included in the country’s register of enterprises of the military-industrial complex it was illegal to publish it online.
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The case said Yandex Maps had published satellite images of the plant that “directly identifies” the location of workshops, tanks storage areas and other “structural elements” of RNPK. The prosecutor’s office said it had previously sent a request to remove the images to Yandex which had failed to respond or comply necessitating the court case.
In its ruling the court said the Ryazan plant must be able to “operate without interruption, meeting the needs of the Russian army and navy” involved in the [so-called] special military operation in Ukraine. The facility was attacked by Ukrainian drones on four occasions, in March, May, July, and August.
It was argued that damage to the plant’s infrastructure and injuries to its personnel were facilitated by the online images.
The court ruling said that access to the RNPK images has made the enterprise “maximally vulnerable to enemy weapons.” In addition, the edict said, it “undermines the state’s defense capability” and “has a negative impact on the timely delivery of materials” to the Russian Armed Forces.
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The court ordered Yandex to “exclude information access” to the RNPK infrastructure “by removing/retouching graphic images of the enterprise’s components (workshops, compressor stations, areas with tanks, and other plant elements)” from Yandex Maps within a month and imposed an undeclared level of fine on the company.
While the court’s decision has yet to be ratified, before it comes into force it cannot be appealed. It is the first time that a court decision has obliged a Russian transnational internet company to remove photographs and maps of a strategically important defense-related facility from public access.
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