Vitaliy Sizov, a
Novosti Donbassa journalist and head of the investigative journalism project Donetskaya Pravda, was the first to
notice the surveillance. A few weeks after the start of the Donteskaya Pravda
project he noticed that several unknown persons had taken a peculiar interest
in him.
On Aug. 23 an
unknown man followed Sizov all the way from the Donetsk region Batkyvshyna headquarters, where a press
conference was held, to the Novosti Donbassa newspaper office. The surveillance
ended only after Sizov made it clear to his watcher that he had noticed him.
After that, he saw the man twice more: in a fast food outlet and next to the
entrance to his apartment block.
On Sept. 6, a
second unknown man followed Sizov when he left his workplace. On Sept. 15, two
unknown men followed Sizov and me, this time from my house. By now the pursuers
did not even try to hide themselves. Later we saw them in three different
places, in different parts of town, during our route through the city.
After that,
neither I, nor Sizov had any doubts that someone had set up a surveillance
operation, employing special equipment to track us, because when we changed our
route, despite there being no cars following us, we ended up running into the
same strange people over and over.
Those following
us knew our routes and routines. Most likely they used our telephone signals to
track us, because as I have mentioned, the surveillance did not break off when
we would suddenly change our course or used public transport.
For example, on
Sept. 15 we were driving in a car and did not see any suspicious cars following
us. However, once we arrived at our destination, our pursuers joined us within
minutes.
On Sept. 16,
Sizov expressed these facts in a petition he delivered to the Donetsk regional
prosecutor. On Sept. 17, the prosecutor’s office added the information into
record, according to part 2 of article 172 of the Ukrainian Criminal codex.
Meanwhile, our
investigative work continued – we continued publishing
Donetskaya
Pravda investigations into suspected corruption, publicizing information about the
regional government’s budget overspending.
The
surveillance progressed on Sept. 24, when unknown assailants attempted to break
into the Novosti Donbassa office, where we spend most of our time.
After that
incident we filed a hooliganism complaint. It’s worth pointing out that a few
weeks before that, several suspicious people would enter the office, allegedly
mistaking it for a travel agency.
It turned out
that a fingerprint left on the office door belonged to a previously convicted
citizen brought before the law for charges of inflicting heavy bodily wounds
resulting in death. When the pursuers tried breaking into the editorial office
they asked neighboring journalists where exactly the Novosti Donbassa office is
located and how many people worked inside.
The
unsuccessful break-in attempt was followed by another strange incident on the
morning of the Sept. 26. That day someone placed a sign on my neighbor’s door
saying “Lyesh Matsuka, I love you!” and shoved matches into my door lock.
The same day the
chairman of the Donetsk regional government administration, Andriy Shishatskiy
declared that he has become aware of the provocations made against us
journalists and that he would treat those as provocations against the
government itself. He called upon a safety committee to investigate all incidents
and took control of the investigation personally.
Despite this,
on the morning of Sept. 27, someone glued a box with a dildo inside to the side
view mirror of my car.
The incidents
and ensuing investigation forced us to suspend Donetskaya Pravda investigations for one month.
On the day of
Oct. 4, the incidents resumed. I was meeting a police investigator next to my
house who was examining the crime scene. After the meeting, the police
investigator was followed by a dark green Lanos with tinted windows, with a
government plate number that read AH2375 AI. The investigator recorded the plate
and ran it through a police database. He found that it had been removed from the
registry in 2005.
On the
afternoon of the same day, I noticed that the same Lanos was following me. I
picked up Sizov from the office and told him about the pursuing car. We
photographed the car and drove to a crowded place – the nearest supermarket.
After we
entered the goods area of the supermarket, two unknown men followed through the
central entrance. One went along the registers, while the other stopped a few
meters away from us and carefully observed me. All the time he would constantly
turn his head sideways, most likely so that it would be impossible to
photograph him.
I recognized
one of them as the man that was looking for a tourism firm in the Novosti
Donbassa office a few weeks back.
This man quickly
left the supermarket once he saw that he’d been made, only to be immediately
replaced by a second man who repeated his actions. I then called the government
security services, which sent out a car for us. Their officers took us to the
train station, where we were to catch a train to Dnipropetrovsk, on a
government car.
As I boarded the
train, an unknown young man appeared and told the conductors that he was
waiting for his sister and her husband, both running late, to escort them. I
believe he, too, was following us. In the end, when the train began to move,
the man called someone and said “You were late, you will have to drive.”
From the train
station, Sizov and the government security service employee were picked up by a
friend of mine. Not far from his car was the same man who was presumably seeing
his sister off at the platform. Next to the car stood a tinted dark green Lanos
with the lights turned on. Inside was the silhouette of a man talking on a
phone. He was similar to the silhouette of a man we saw in the supermarket. On
the car was a plate with the number AH 7067 BM. It was later determined that
the particular plate was removed from the registrar in 2006.
From the train
station Sizov drove to Kalinynskiy regional police department, where he filed a
complaint regarding the aforementioned events. From there he requested that an
armed officer escort him home, and they obliged.
On Oct. 16, I
noticed that I was being followed again. During another meeting with
investigators an unknown man had followed us from the news office to the police
department. His identity remains unknown.
That same
evening I received an anonymous letter with violent threats. It is worth
mentioning here that on the next day (Oct. 17) the president and a few other
key officials were to visit Donetsk for an official summit. Why I am bringing
this up will become clear later.
So all in all, due to complaints
that I had filed, there were five criminal proceedings opened. They included: a
threat of murder, the prevention of journalist activities and hooliganism.
My colleagues and I presume a few
possible scenarios that could explain the events that took place. All of them
are being considered by investigators. However, we would like to make a few
remarks of our own.
First of all, the surveillance began
after the Donetska Pravda investigation began. The project is a combined effort
with the International Renaissance Foundation, and it began in August. The topic:
utility company acquisitions by those closely connected to the Donetsk regional
government administration. It’s not out of the question that the surveillance
was instigated by one of the subjects of our investigation.
Second of all, methods used against
us in 2013 (box with a dildo, paint on the walls) are very similar to the
methods used in 2011, when unknown men left a funeral wreath at my apartment door
and set it on fire. This happened during the transfer of power in the region.
Two weeks before this Andriy Shishatskiy became chairman of the Donetsk
regional government, but Anatoliy Bliznyuk’s team still made up the bulk of its
administration staff.
Right now in
the Donetsk Oblast a power transfer is happening again, only not in the
regional administration, but in President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.
On Oct. 7, the Regions
Party met and announced that Boris Kolesnikov would be retiring from his
position as chief of the Party of Regions in Donetsk to “concentrate on his party
related work as vice-chairman of the Party of Regions.”
On Nov. 9, a
conference of the region’s organization took place, during which the change in
administration occurred.
Taking into account that the meeting
which announced Kolesnikov’s retirement was led by Shishatskiy, and that in
Ukraine governors usually head the ruling party’s representations, Shishatskiy
is practically without alternative the only candidate for the position as
leader of the party in Donetsk region.
But the party is not the monolith it
seems to be. Within the Donetsk regional organization alone there are several
factions fighting for the resources and influence, especially on the eve of the
2015 Presidential elections, which mean an opportunity to take elective committees,
positions, quotas, direct contact with key officials, chances for
self-promotion and most importantly – money.
If one excludes the first hypothesis,
about surveillance being carried out by the objects of investigation, could
journalists be perceived as a pawn in the political struggle and what are the
people involved ready to do for victory?
How lucrative is it for governor
Shishatskiy to lay pressure on independent journalists on the eve of the
regional Regions Party elections (which are a formality) and on the eve of the
President’s visit to Donetsk for the international economic summit?
How lucrative is it for Shishatskiy’s
political opponents, as they are losing influence, to do the same to create a
scandal and at least phase the defense of their opponents?
We hope that the investigation will
shed some light on these questions, as it finds not only those executing the
surveillance, but those that have ordered it.
Oleksiy Matsuka
is editor-in-chief of Donetsk online news site Novosti Donbassa.
