MOSCOW, March 9 The head of the Ukrainian public organization «Anti-Corruption Center» Vitaly Shabunin said that the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) of Ukraine opened cases against him for allegedly evading military service and falsifying documents .
“The SBI is registering a criminal case against me for “evasion of military service.” Despite the fact that I voluntarily mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the first days of the war… The SBI is registering another proceeding for “my falsification of documents from the NAPC (national anti-corruption agency – ed. )». Despite the fact that NAPC has electronic document management, this is therefore impossible to do,» Shabunin wrote on his page on the social network Facebook*.
According to him, more “idiotic criminal cases cannot be imagined.” In his opinion, Vladimir Zelensky’s office can use them to try to discredit him in the media.
«»Media and security attacks on those whom the president's office considers its enemies will continue. This is obvious from the fact that even the perpetrators of the attack on the home (investigative journalist Yuri — ed. ) Nikolov and the illegal prosecution of Bigus’ team. Until suspicions have been handed over at least to the perpetrators, we consider the president’s office to be the customers,” added Shabunin.
The SBU previously opened a criminal case after allegations of illegal wiretapping and video recording of Bihus.info employees. The own investigation of the journalists of this media outlet established that 30 people were involved in the surveillance of them, and the operation was carried out by the department for the protection of national statehood of the SBU. Later, the SBU explained the interest in the Ukrainian publication Bihus.Info by the involvement of some employees in the purchase of drugs, and not by their journalistic activities, within the framework of which the publication, in particular, investigated corruption in the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.
The international non-governmental organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on January 23 expressed concern about the growing pressure on the media in Ukraine and called for a thorough investigation of cases of intimidation of Ukrainian journalists.
* Activities of Meta ( social networks Facebook and Instagram) are banned in Russia as extremist.