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UN monitors report attacks on journalists in Ukraine — Russian diplomat

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission’s report, 21 incidents of attacks on media have taken place in 2018

VIENNA, July 5./TASS/. A report of the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission has mentioned 21 incidents of attacks on media representatives in Ukraine this year, as well as 71 incidents of curbs on free speech, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich told a session of its Permanent Council in Vienna on Thursday.

He said manifestations of dissent with the policy of the "Maidan" authorities in Ukraine are inevitably suppressed, and Kiev is specifically intolerant towards independent journalism.

"According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission’s report, 21 incidents of attacks on media have taken place in 2018, and 71 incidents of crackdown on free speech in Ukraine. On June 26, the Ukrainian authorities deported from the country and slapped a five-year entry ban on Russian journalists Yevgeny Primakov (VGTRK) and Paula Slier (Russia Today), arriving for a conference on freedom and pluralism of the media," he said.

"Journalist Kirill Vyshinsky is still in custody for his professional activity," Lukashevich stressed. A report by the UN high commissioner for human rights late in June said the number of attacks on media professionals is growing. The European security agency OSCE is also concerned about the situation with curbs on free speech in that country.

Vyshinsky case

On May 15, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) conducted a large-scale operation against the employees of RIA Novosti Ukraine accusing them of high treason. Its Editor-in-Chief Kirill Vyshinsky was taken into custody near his house early in the morning.

Shortly after that, searches began at the news agency’s central office in Kiev, in its press center and in some journalists’ apartments, which lasted several hours. The Ukrainian intelligence agency also issued a statement saying that it uncovered the activities of "a network of media structures controlled by the Russian Federation," which were used by "the aggressor state as part of a hybrid information war against Ukraine."

On May 17, the Kherson City Court in Ukraine arrested the journalist for two months. The defense team appealed the sentence, but the appeal was dismissed. The journalist is facing up to 15 years behind the bars.

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