Miranda-media, a subsidiary of Russian state-controlled telecommunications company Rostelecom, has acquired assets in the Russian Republic of Crimea, including telecommunications equipment and fiber optical networks with a total length exceeding 2,000 kilometers. Business news daily Vedomosti reported this on Thursday with reference to sources close to the telecom operator.
The deal is estimated at around $30 million, according to the newspaper. The acquired infrastructure was earlier owned by three Ukrainian companies, the sources said. However, they named only two of them — Datagroup and Atracom.
Rostelecom has also been negotiating the purchase of assets in Crimea with former telecommunications monopoly Ukrtelecom which is currently owned by structures of Ukrainian business tycoon Rinat Akhmetov, but he did not agree on the price.
The Rostelecom official confirmed to the daily that the company had bought infrastructure in Crimea, but did not disclose terms of the deal and sellers. He only noted that the deal did not demand approval from the board of directors of the state-run telecommunications operator, because they had bought equipment of telecommunications channels, but not stakes in companies. The purchase of already built infrastructure permits to save time for building a full-scale network to begin services to subscribers on the peninsula, the Rostelecom official confirmed.
The daily’s source also noted that Rostelecom did not intend to open a subsidiary in the Russian Republic of Crimea.