Zelensky and Office of President’s officials discussed leak of Bogdan's letter of resignation

Photo credit: Nataliya Kravchuk, Novoe Vremya On August 2, the president Volodymyr Zelensky and officials of the Office of the President (OPU) had a meeting after the letter of resignation of the OPU head Andriy Bohdan was leaked to the media, as the deputy head of OPU Kyrylo Tymoshenko said interviewed by Liga.net. “We had a staff meeting dealing with it. There were all the deputies, the president, the head of the OPU. This was the next day, ” he said. Tymoshenko added that he, the deputy head of the OPU, Yuriy Kostyuk and staff were asked about the divulgation of the letter of resignation. He failed to specify any detail. At the same time, Tymoshenko said that they did not plan to make an internal investigation into the incident. "It's nonsense. We had the same story with the President's speech. We then tried to do an official investigation and found the ultimate person who wrote it. But we understand that it could have happened in a different way, we suspect it. And the investigation did not give us any results. The same happens now. How can we now find out the person in the administration (OPU - edit) who leaked the document?  It happened to be in several places, we know what its path was,” he said. According to him, about 12-14 people could "leak" the letter of resignation. “We tried to establish who was the source, but now we are in a deadlock. There is a delineated circle of persons and we cannot find out more. We will keep a close eye on this circle of people, ” he said. IMI reported, on August 5, the media outlet of the Media for Conscious Choice made public an open letter addressed to the president Vladimir Zelensky's team warning them against provocations against the media. "The Media Movement “Media for Conscious Choice” warns the President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team against provocations against the media. “We do not need journalists as mediators to talk to voters” is a short-sighted stance that demonstrates misunderstandings by the colleagues of the head of state of the role and functions the mass media have in society. The new government’s willingness to spread misinformation is a worrying signal that requires from journalists not to forget to thoroughly verify the statements and to take under tough control the politicians’ actions, the open letters reads. On August 1st, a number of media outlets and news agencies made public the news about the letter of resignation of his own free will, which was allegedly written by the head of the Office of the President Andriy Bohdan. A photo of this letter was sent to several media outlets from a source in the Office of the President (according to “Dzerkalo tyzhdnya” weekly and some other sources, it was the deputy head of the OP Kyrylo Tymoshenko. He denies it). The next day, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed that Bohdan, like all other members of the team, had written a letter of resignation without date. As to the president, divulgating a copy of this letter was not misinformation. Commenting on this story, Andriy Bohdan said that journalists should not identify themselves with the society, and, meanwhile, Volodymyr Zelensky’s team communicates with society without any intermediary. It should be noted that representatives of the Office of the President deliberately contributed to the dissemination of the untrue news: they handed over a copy of the letter to several journalists at the same time and did not confirm or deny its authenticity for 24 hours. So this is a deliberate provocation against the media. We consider it unacceptable when public officials and politicians knowingly disseminate false information, undermining public confidence in the media. Of particular concern is the reaction of the Head of State, Volodymyr Zelensky, who did not acknowledge that his subordinates acted inappropriately".