Call-up notice as revenge: Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office launches case over obstruction of Slidstvo.info journalists’ activity

Officers of a military enlistment office and their “supervisor”. Photo: Screenshot from video by Slidstvo.info

The Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) has reported opening a criminal investigation into an incident involving military enlistment office employees who tried to serve a draft notice on a journalist of Slidstvo.info, a Ukrainian investigative journalism outlet. This followed the outlet’s investigation into the family wealth of Illia Vitiuk, Head of the Cybersecurity Department of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU).

Source: PGO press service

Quote: “In connection with the incident that took place during the serving of the call-up notice on the journalist of Slidstvo.info, the Office of the Prosecutor General added information to the Unified Register of Pre-trial Investigations regarding possible abuse of office and obstruction of professional activities of journalists by the SSU and a military enlistment office, under the tentative legal classification of Article 364.1, Article 171.3 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.”

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Details: The pre-trial investigation in the criminal proceedings is reportedly entrusted to the Main Investigation Department of the State Bureau of Investigation.

Background:

• Slidstvo.Info investigative journalists found that the wife of Illia Vitiuk purchased the apartment worth over UAH 20 million (around US$516,000) at market price, even though Vitiuk stated in his tax declaration that the apartment cost UAH 12.8 million (roughly US$328,000).
• On 6 April, it was reported that after this, staff from a military enlistment office approached Yevhen Shulhat, an investigative journalist from Slidstvo.Info, and attempted to serve him with a call-up notice. The enlistment officers were allegedly accompanied by Oleksii Bilenko, who is close to Illia Vitiuk and works in the SSU cybersecurity department.
• Jointly with the General Staff, the SSU and the Ministry of Defence are looking into information published by Slidstvo.Info regarding the attempts to serve a call-up notice to one of their journalists after he published an investigation into a Security Service official.

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