On 13 March 2015, it was announced that Inter Media Group, owned by pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash, had taken over the Ukrainian service. In response, the Ukrainian government decided to revoke its broadcasting license for its suspected bias and dropped its funding. Firtash later abandoned the project, resulting in the department shutting down and leaving 17 journalists redundant. The Russian service, which was financed by Moscow, refused to provide jobs to the journalists, in violation of French labour legislation. The management explained that not hiring any Ukrainian journalists was a specific instruction from VGTRK.