An arson attack that took place on Sept. 4 in the office of the Inter TV channel again put the spotlight on the channel accused of pro-Kremlin sympathies.Inter argues that the attack was politically motivated for its criticism of the government. Politicians and activists say the channel was attacked for being a “Kremlin agent.”
Arson, protests
Ahead of the arson attack, a group of activists in camouflage staged a protest in front of Inter office on Shchuseva Street in Kyiv.
The activists were identified as former soldiers and members of the All-Ukrainian Union of Anti-Terrorist Operation Veterans, a group of Donbas war veterans. After setting up tents and setting fire to car tires, they started chanting “Inter is a Kremlin agent.”
Then, at 4:30 p.m. Inter’s office was set on fire by a group of masked and helmeted arsonists.
CCTV footage that Inter released three days after the fire matches eyewitness accounts. People in helmets and masks pushed past the building’s guards while setting off fire extinguishers. They rushed into the building and set a first-floor studio on fire.
Inter cameramen Vadim Revun, who filmed the fire, told the Kyiv Post that the 10 attackers beat him and threw him and another cameraman out of the building.
They were taken to the hospital with a female reporter who suffered a spinal injury. Other staff were affected by smoke inhalation.
Police later arrested nine people at the scene, but released them after questioning and identity checks. All of them were Ukrainian military veterans.
According to the authorities, the fire damaged an area of about 30 square meters on the first and second floors.
Protests continued on Sept. 5, this time near Inter’s headquarters on Dmytrivska Street in central Kyiv. Several dozen activists blocked the entrance and prevented Inter employees from entering the building.
Demands for change
One of the activists, Oleksiy Serediuk, a member of the St. Maria Battalion, posted on his Facebook page an open letter to Dmytro Firtash, one of the owners of Inter Media Group. Firtash is a billionaire in exile who is facing bribery charges in the United States and owes the National Bank of Ukraine $482 million in unpaid loans to his insolvent Nadra Bank.
The open letter demanded that a supervisory board for the Inter Media Group be set up, that two soldiers be made members of executive board, and that the TV channel’s managers be dismissed.
The veterans also called for Serhiy Lyovochkin, a lawmaker and another owner of the Inter Media Group, who served as chief of staff for ex-President Viktor Yanukovych, and Ihor Shuvalov, a Russian citizen and deputy director at Inter’s news service, to end their association with the channel.
The blockade ended on Sept. 6. Activists claimed they had reached agreement with Inter’s management that within five days that the channel would change its pro-Kremlin content and fire Shuvalov. “Otherwise we will resume the blockade and strive to shut down the channel,” another protester, Vitaliy Cherniy told the Kyiv Post.
But Inter later released an official statement saying the channel had not held any negotiations with the protesters. Chernyi claimed that the activists had negotiated with representatives of Firtash.
Kremlin agents?
Inter ranked as the fifth most-watched channel in Ukraine in August, according to viewing figures by the research company Nielsen.
Nataliya Ligacheva, head of a Kyiv-based media watchdog Detector Media, said that Inter’s editorial line could be interpreted as pro-Russian.
“Inter refused to give a balance of opinions, and has become a PR machine for the Opposition Bloc,” said Ligacheva, referring to the party of former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s political supporters. “It’s quite obvious, as they get the leader of the Opposition Bloc to comment on every event.”
According to Detector Media, Inter’s daily news program Podrobnosti has been a leading violator of professional standards among Ukrainian programs.
Yevhen Fedchenko, the head of the Kyiv Mohyla School of Journalism and co-founder of StopFake.org, a website that documents fake news about Ukraine, described the channel as “pro-Russian.”
“The news framing on Inter matches the news framing on Russian media,” he said.
Since Inter has been seen as pro-Russian for years, it’s not clear why the attack took place now, when the channel has lost its leading position among viewers, Fedchenko said.
“The attack seemed quite unnatural to me and looked like a preplanned act by people who knew very well what they were doing,” said Fedchenko. “Ukrainian radicals are more clumsy and amateur.”
