Journalists of two leading investigative reporting outlets in Ukraine, Nashi Groshi and Schemes, have separately announced that they are under surveillance.
The Ukrainian group of independent journalists Initiative 34 have called on law enforcers to investigate the incidents.
Nashi Groshi reported its office was under watch this week as it prepares to release an exposé into how President Petro Poroshenko’s entourage benefits from corruption in the defense sector as Ukrainian troops fight Russia war’s in the eastern Donbas, which has killed nearly 3,000 soldiers in more than five years of combat.
Denys Bihus, chief editor of Nashi Groshi, suspects that agents of the Security Service of Ukraine, whose head Vasyl Hrytsak is appointed by the president, are the ones following their journalists.
Separately, journalists of Schemes, an investigative project of the Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty, came forward to say they have been watched by billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov’s security agency for the past six months.
In response to the allegations, the security agency claimed they had conducted counter-surveillance to curtail unlawful covert monitoring and illegal collection of information on Akhmetov.
“In surveillance and stalking of the journalists, we see not only an attempt to intimidate them but also an attempt to impede their work, which is a crime,” the statement by the journalist group Initiative 34 reads. “We demand the National Police and the Prosecutor General’s Office to open a probe to identify and punish those who order pressure on journalists.”
Initiative 34 is an informal group of Ukrainian independent media outlets established to protect freedom of speech. The Kyiv Post is a member of the group, along with journalists from Ukrainska Pravda, Hromadske, RFE/RL, and other media outlets.
Bihus, chief editor of Nashi Groshi, noticed their Kyiv office was being monitored on Feb. 19. Several cars were parked around the building at a convenient viewing distance with men sitting inside the cars for hours and changing in shifts. The journalists checked the car license plates in car number registries: they were either fakes or registered to other vehicles.
The surveillance was noticed after Nashi Groshi reporters had sent out official requests to comment to five state agencies which appear in their new four-part journalistic investigation that will premiere on Feb. 25.
The report is said to expose a corruption scheme in the defense sector run by people close to Poroshenko and covered up by top law enforcement agencies, namely the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU; Prosecutor General’s Office; Military Prosecutor’s Office; State Fiscal Service; and even the National Anti-Corruption Bureau, a supposedly independent body praised by civil society and international organizations for making progress in corruption investigations.
Bihus doesn’t know who ordered the surveillance.
“We have an experience of being watched. Judging by their behavior, they look like SBU. Last summer, Hrytsak’s guards followed our reporter for a week,” he said. “Yesterday I approached a man sitting in one of the cars. He drove away. I don’t know what their goal is.”
Neither of the agencies has responded to Bihus’ allegations. The Kyiv Post sent a request for comment to SBU.
The defense industry has grown substantially, with more than $6 billion getting spent on security and defense – roughly 5 percent of the nation’s economic output – because of Russia’s war. Much of the spending is shrouded in secrecy, making it a ripe target for corruption.
Poroshenko is seeking re-election on March 31, touting his tough stand against Russia and his progress in integrating Ukraine more closely with the European Union and NATO. He ranks second in most polls and will have to compete for a place in the April 21 runoff with Batkivshchyna Party leader and ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Comedy actor Volodymyr Zelenskiy has taken a strong lead in polls.
Earlier this month, Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko, an appointee and an open loyalist of Poroshenko, launched an investigation into embezzlement by former defense ministers, one of whom, Anatoliy Grytsenko, is among the 44 presidential candidates.
In the surveillance of the production crew of the RFE/RL’s Schemes, they say they have identified their stalkers.
The Schemes reporters established that several cars, which had been following their office car for six months belong to a private security agency Delta Donbas whose beneficiary owner is the oligarch Akhmetov, the richest man in Ukraine. They believe that the stalking ensued from their investigations into Akhmetov’s secret meetings with a number of Ukrainian politicians and top government officials, including visits to the Presidential Administration.
Lyudmyla Pankratova, a lawyer of the Institute for Regional Press Development, told RFE/RL that such surveillance may signal pressure on journalists with an aim to impede their professional activity, which is a crime under Ukrainian law. Schemes’ journalists said they would report surveillance to police on Feb. 22.
On Feb. 24, Delta Donbas security agency released a statement claiming that it had taken countermeasures against unlawful covert monitoring, invasion of privacy, and illegal collection of information.
“We deny any accusations of surveillance. The actions of our security staff were open and aimed at preventing possible threat on the side of unknown persons that systematically conduct covert monitoring,” the statement read. “We respect journalists who perform their duties openly and professionally. Regarding “spying” by, as we know now, the journalists of a particular media outlet, Delta Donbas is ready to provide all necessary materials to the police so that the police decide who breaks the law.”
