The tax police searched the Kyiv office of Vesti daily newspaper on June 18.
The newspaper is suspected of tax evasion, conducting fictitious business and money laundering.
Ukrainian politicians and civic activists have accused Vesti of biased and anti-Ukrainian coverage.
The authorities have already searched newspaper’s offices twice in 2014.
The tax police searched the office of the Multimedia Invest Group at the Gulliver business center in downtown Kyiv early in the morning of June 18, blocking the work of the two publications, Vesti newspaper and Vesti Reporter magazine, for several hours.
A second search was conducted at the same time at the office of Vesti Mass Media, a company that founded Vesti newspaper.
According to the State Fiscal Service, the searches were part of the pre-trial investigation of the criminal proceeding initiated in April 2014 against employees of Vesti Mass Media on charges of tax evasion, fictitious business and money laundering.
The searches were authorized by a court ruling.
Ihor Guzhva, editor-in-chief of Vesti and official owner of the media holding, claimed many times that all charges against him and his company media company Multimedia Invest Group, are fabricated.
According to Guzhva, 242 employees of the media holding were questioned by the state fiscal service in 2014 on a case of tax evasion by the publication.
“We consider these actions a direct government pressure on independent media,” Guzhva wrote on Facebook after the June 18 search. “We emphasize that in spite of everything we will continue to work and won’t change our civil and journalistic positions.”
Much of Vesti’s 350,000 daily circulation is distributed for free in Kyiv and other big Ukrainian cities.
The newspaper was launched two years ago and quickly grew into a media holding which includes a daily newspaper, a monthly magazine Vesti Reporter, a radio station and a TV Channel UBR.
While Guzhva is the official owner of the media holding, he never revealed his sources of funding, sparking speculation that the newspaper is being financed by Ukrainian or Russian businessmen with political interests.
“Regarding Vesti, no one ever had any doubts that it is Russian money,” said Natalia Ligachova, chief editor at Telekritika, a media watchdog. “The only thing is that it is impossible to prove it.”
The investigation of Vesti started soon after EuroMaidan Revolution, which forced then-President Viktor Yanukovych and his closest allies run away to Russia.
The investigation came to no result so far.
A number of public protests were held against Vesti and its pro-Russian position.
During the first search at the Vesti’s office on May 22, 2014, the tax police have found over Hr 1.5 million in cash in a cabinet in Guzhva’s office.
He later explained that the money belonged to his employee.
The investigation found out that the newspaper was receiving money through a bank owned by Serhiy Kurchenko, an oligarch from the closest circle of Yanukovych and another runaway.
In September 2014, the Security Service of Ukraine added new charges to the case, investigating Vesti for threatening the territorial integrity and inviolability of Ukraine with its publications.
The case came to no result so far.
Serhiy Vysotskiy, lawmaker and deputy head of the parliamentary committee for freedom of speech and information, said that media like Vesti help Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“Because a plan of war, drafted in the Kremlin, features not only military actions but undermining sovereignty of Ukraine from the inside by loosening the situation,” he said. “And of course the media affiliated with Kurchenko or directly with Russia help this. They are just an instrument in this war against Ukraine.”
Vesti employees deny the charges.
“Tax authorities can check our sources of funding, they are available, they are absolutely open,” said Iryna Chernenko, deputy head of the marketing department at the media holding. “We have a holding company which finances us. If there were any violations they would already have been found during the two (previous) searches. Therefore we consider this is as an obstruction of our (professional) activity.”
Oksana Lyachynska is a Kyiv Post freelance writer and a former staff writer. She can be reached at [email protected].
