The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on Feb. 16 charged exiled pro-Kremlin blogger and politician Anatoly Shariy with high treason and hate speech.
The move is in line with President Volodymyr Zelensky’s latest tough actions against pro-Kremlin forces. On Feb. 2 he introduced sanctions that shut down three pro-Kremlin television channels – NewsOne, 112 Ukraine and ZIK.
Shariy, who currently lives in Spain, targets mostly a pro-Russian audience. He was highly critical of ex-President Petro Poroshenko and supported Zelensky in the 2019 presidential election. However, over the past year Shariy has become one of the most vocal critics of Zelensky.
Shariy denies the accusations of spreading Kremlin propaganda and treason and believes the case to be a political vendetta.
“I thank the SBU for charging me with high treason by publishing a propaganda video on Telegram,” Shariy tweeted in a reference to a video published by the SBU to explain the Shariy case. “Now I don’t have to prove once again in the EU that all cases against me are pure politics.”
Shariy lives in the European Union, where he received the status of a political refugee. A former journalist, he fled Ukraine in 2012 following a criminal case opened against him for assault.
The SBU cited forensic assessments of Shariy’s speeches and argued that he helped Russia to organize publicity campaigns in the media, including Russian television, and on social networks.
Shariy spread fakes about Russia’s war against Ukraine and manipulated information in order to destabilize the situation in the country, the SBU added.
“The investigators believe that he has been involved in unlawful activities that damage Ukraine’s national security in the media,” the SBU said. “There are grounds to believe that Anatoly Shariy was paid by foreign agencies.”
The SBU also accused Shariy of inciting ethnic or religious hatred.
Shariy’s response
“I looked at this (SBU) video that accuses me of saying that there’s a civil war in Ukraine,” Shariy told 112 Ukraine television, which is currently available only on YouTube. “I’ll repeat 10 times that there’s a civil war in Ukraine. They accuse me of saying that Ukraine is a colony (of the West) – yes, I believe that Ukraine is a colony. Is this high treason? F*ck them!”
Apart from spreading Kremlin propaganda, Shariy has been accused of inciting hatred towards ethnic groups and sexual minorities.
In 2015, Shariy recorded a video in which he said that people from western Ukraine are inferior to “real” Ukrainians.
“I’m Ukrainian. You’re not Ukrainian,” he said. “You’re… I’m not saying you’re second rate, but you are half-blood, third blood, quarter blood, you’re fuck knows what.”
Later Shariy denied inciting hatred towards western Ukrainians.
Who is Shariy
Shariy is one of Ukraine’s most popular video bloggers and has 2.4 million subscribers on YouTube. He targets a pro-Russian audience.
Ukrainian activists have called upon YouTube to block him.
In 2019 Shariy also set up his own Anatoly Shariy Party, which caters to mostly young pro-Russian voters. The party competes with the Opposition Platform-For Life and Zelensky’s Servant of the People parties for the pro-Russian electorate.
The party received 2.2 percent of the vote in the 2019 parliamentary elections, failing to get into the Rada, but got 52 mandates in local councils in the 2020 local elections.
Back in 2011, Shariy shot a man with a pneumatic pistol in a Kyiv McDonald’s restaurant. According to police, he also staged an attack against himself by hiring people to shoot at his car.
Security camera footage leaked online shows Shariy shooting an unarmed man who was exiting the McDonalds in the back. Shariy then flees the crime scene.
Shariy has accused the Ukrainian police of political persecution. In 2012 he fled the country and asked for asylum in Lithuania. His request was granted, and the assault case is now closed in Ukraine.
In 2019, during court hearings on defamation charges Shariy leveled against his sister Olena Marchenko and Russian lawyer Mark Feygin, it was revealed that Shariy has a European Union passport.
In 2020, the Slidstvo.Info investigative journalism project also discovered that Shariy owns a villa near Barcelona worth over 1 million euros.
