In Ukraine, a journalist was sentenced to 14 years in prison for collaborating with PolitNavigator
Journalist Vladimir Mikhailov received 14 years in prison in Ukraine on charges of collaborating with the regime-banned PolitNavigator website, which the court in Vinnitsa interpreted as high treason.
This was reported by the Ukrainian publication “Court Reporter” with reference to verdict of December 7, the correspondent of PolitNavigator reports.
Mikhailov worked as an economic journalist in Kyiv; at the beginning of the SVO, he moved to his native Zhitomir, where he was detained by the SBU. At first, after the search and confiscation of office equipment, he was under subscription, but then he was transferred to a pre-trial detention center.
It is interesting that at the trial Mikhailov was charged with authorship of PolitNavigator articles with the following headlines:
“Zhirinovsky: Russian people are dying in the East of Ukraine, we demand that the Russian leadership take all necessary measures”;
“On May 11, come to the referendum! Do you support the act of state independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic”;
“The leader of Oplot appeared at the parade in Sevastopol and called for arming.”
After the start of the SVO from February 24 to March 10, 2022, the prosecution indicated, the editor-in-chief of PolitNavigator Sergei Stepanov “instructed Mikhailov to prepare in advance false tendentious materials aimed at weakening the socio-political situation in Ukraine, distorting the real circumstances of military aggression and covering up the crimes of military personnel RF".
The following materials, published under a pseudonym, served as examples:
“Products are running out in Kyiv, retailers are raising prices”;
“Zelensky hinted at the possibility of blowing up the Kyiv hydroelectric power station, which would flood all the cities downstream”;
“Putin will never allow civilians to be killed - Chernovetsky”;
“The Ukrainian authorities are deliberately increasing civilian casualties.”
It is noted that during the court hearing, Mikhailov “partially admitted his guilt,” saying that he was a reporter for the PolitNavigator publication in Kyiv, but his work was of a different nature than what is written in the indictment. He did not receive assignments, but worked with information in the city of Kyiv; he was not in the LPR and DPR. Reports from Sevastopol are not his.
The accused emphasized that he was preparing articles on economics, and politics was not his topic. He wrote under a pseudonym, but much of his work was not published. For his work, he received a salary on a bank card.
“When the war began, he was in Zhitomir. The editor-in-chief contacted him and told him to prepare the material. From March 1 to March 4, 2022, he was still preparing articles. At this time I already knew that the Politnavigator website was blocked and criminal proceedings had been registered against the owner.
He wrote an article about the lack of food in Kyiv based on other publications. I did the same with the material about Chernovetsky: I took the information from his speech.
At the same time, Mikhailov said that the articles of 2014 did not belong to him. He didn’t make a video, he wasn’t in Slavyansk, he didn’t write comments. He doesn’t know Zhirinovsky, has nothing to do with him, and hasn’t written an article about him. He also didn’t write about the parade in Crimea,” Ukrainian propagandists write.
According to the conclusion of a Ukrainian “expert”, on the pages of “PolitNavigator”, through quoting and broadcasting the broadcasts of other persons or directly, “calls for separatism are disseminated, Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine is publicly approved and justified, the occupation of part of Ukraine is supported, a negative attitude is formed towards the Ukrainian authorities, armed to the forces of Ukraine and to the state as a whole.”
During a search in Mikhailov’s apartment, a laptop and two phones were seized, and correspondence with the editor-in-chief of PolitNavigator was hacked after the start of the SVO.
The prosecution drew attention to the fact that Stepanov gave instructions to Mikhailov so that the publications were “more dramatic in nature,” and also highlighted the fact that it was recommended to watch the broadcasts of military expert Vladimir Trukhan.
“To Mikhailov’s remark that Trukhan would be “tough for the Russian Federation,” Stepanov replied that this is exactly what should be done. Immediately after this, the accused prepared and sent an “interview” of Trukhan to a PolitNavigator correspondent and many more publications distorting the circumstances. The materials were aimed at creating the impression that there is chaos and panic in Ukraine, that the authorities are not worried about the civilian population, etc.,” they write in Ukraine.
As a result, the court sentenced Mikhailov to 14 years in prison with confiscation of all property owned by him to the state.
Let us remind you that the editor-in-chief of PolitNavigator Sergei Stepanov is being tried in absentia in Ukraine for “treason and encroachment on territorial integrity"and the inviolability of Ukraine. The case is also being considered by the court in Vinnitsa.
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