A lingering inside conflict at Hromadske.tv, a Ukrainian news platform funded by several governments and foundations, broke into the open on Jan. 19 when news surfaced that a former top employee is trying to hijack the project.
The supervisory board of Hromadske said that Roman Skrypin, a co-founder and former journalist of Hromadske, has allegedly refused to turn over $200,000 that viewers donated to Hromadske through Skrypin’s bank account. He also allegedly claims ownership of the domain name Hromadske.tv.
Skrypin, however, denied the allegations and said they were “based on the fantasies of the supervisory board.”
One of the eight journalists who co-founded Hromadske in 2013, Skrypin owns the rights to the domain name Hromadske.tv, which he registered in 2012. He was the head of Hromadske.tv until May, when the board members voted for Natalya Gumenyuk to replace him.
Hromadske is an online TV and news platform that is financed by grants, including from the European Commission, US and Canadian governments, the Soros Foundation and donations. Since the beginning of its work in 2013, the donations were coming to a PayPal account linked to the personal bank account of Skrypin in Czech Republic.
Skrypin explained in a Facebook post on Jan. 19 that he was the only co-founder who had a bank account abroad, required to receive money via PayPal. PayPal is not fully operative in Ukraine.
In its statement, released on Jan. 19, the supervisory board of Hromadske.tv said that Skrypin has ignored demands to surrender the rights for the website’s domain name that he owns, as well as the donations.
Dmytro Gnap, an investigative journalist with Hromadske.tv, said that the Skrypin took control of 150,000 euros in donations and $36,000 that Hromadske received from YouTube ads.
Skrypin said he is ready to transfer the money to Hromadske as soon as he is given a bank account abroad to transfer the money.
“As of now, I’ve been waiting seven hours for an account to send Hromadske the money,” he wrote sarcastically on Facebook on the evening of Jan. 19.
He is also ready to rent out or sell Hromadske.tv domain name to the media he co-founded.
“Why do they demand that I gave away the domain name if everywhere in the world such issues are solved through a sale or a rent deal? Now I definitely do not want to give it for free. We can discuss the details though,” he wrote.
On Jan. 16 Skrypin announced that he was launching Hromadske Kyiv, a separate media under the now popular brand.
Hromadske said that Hromadske Kyiv was Skrypin’s initiative and it had nothing to do with it.
The freshly created Hromadske Kyiv Facebook page said that the new media would be financed with the money, donated during the last two years mostly by Ukrainians who live abroad.
The board of Hromadske.tv said in a statement that Skrypin may be using the donations that he took hold of to launch Hromadske Kyiv.
“The money that belongs to the Hromadske NGO can be used to finance the project that is not accountable to the NGO neither as its structural unit, nor as a third party that received the right to use the Hromadske brand,” read the statement by Hromadske.
In a commentary to the Kyiv Post, Skrypin said that the funds of Hromadske.tv would not be used for Hromadske Kyiv. He confirmed he was ready to return the donations to Hromadske.
Gumenyuk seemed skeptical about the negotiations.
“We have been talking with him for a long time in the ‘I will do this’ format. I think though that it is important for everyone to show some specific actions,” she told the Kyiv Post.
Bohdan Kutiepov, a Hromadske.tv journalist, compared the situation to a family crisis.
“It is a story of a man quietly leaving his family, and post-factum calling his wife and children to say, ‘Sorry, but I left you to start a new family, so I took the family’s savings. You are not poor anyway,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “But those are the money that thousands people have been giving during two years…to the television that can be trusted, and that appreciates the viewers’ trust, following the statute and rules.”
This isn’t the first domain name scandal for Skrypin.
Almost 10 years ago, after leaving the 5 channel, he took the initial www.5tv.com.ua with him. The channel then started www.5.ua, which is active since then.
The www.5tv.com.ua website that Skrypin said “he would not give away for any money” is now dead.
