Court dismisses "Islandiya" host's lawsuit against Natalia Lyhachova

Volodymyr Petrov. Screenshot from a video by "Islandiya"

The Darnytsia District Court of Kyiv dismissed the defamation lawsuit filed by the political consultant, founder and host of the YouTube channel "Islandiya" Volodymyr Petrov against the "Detector Media" editor-in-chief Natalia Lyhachova.

The judgement was passed on May 10, 2024.

In the lawsuit, Petrov asked the court to declare unreliable the information from Lyhachova's speech at the "National Media Talk" on October 12, 2023, where she mentioned Petrov's involvement in the deployment of titushkas who beat Channel 5 journalist Olha Snitsarchuk to the Maidan on May 18, 2013. He also asked the court to order Lyhachova to retract this information.

In his lawsuit, Petrov stated that Lyhachova spread false information about him bringing the titushkas to the Maidan, which makes him somewhat complicit in the attack on Olha Snitsarchuk.

The court noted that the plaintiff Volodymyr Petrov is a public figure: "a journalist, a well-known blogger who has run for President of Ukraine, therefore he should be open to strict criticism and close supervision on the part of the public, and the limit of permissible criticism of such a person is much looser."

The court also believes that Lyhachova's claim that Petrov is "the one who once brought titushkas to the Maidan" does not imply the plaintiff's complicity in a crime, namely committing illegal actions against the journalist Snitsarchuk.

The court notes that the statements by Natalia Lyhachova "cannot be interpreted as containing hard data, which makes declaring them unreliable impossible."

"The disputed sentences are constructed in a way that shows specified information is the speaker's own opinion, a value judgment, since the author was only expressing her own beliefs and views regarding the plaintiff's actions, without citing any specific data. ... Thus, the disputed statements regarding the plaintiff's person are value judgments, as they reflect the defendant's own opinion," the court noted, adding that value judgments "cannot be interpreted as reports of hard facts, therefore they are not unreliable information."

The court ruled that there are no legal grounds for satisfying Petrov's claims in this part.

"In view of the above, since opinions, beliefs, and critical assessment of certain facts do not warrant prosecution, the court concluded that the claims to declare the information unreliable and order the defendant to retract the unreliable information should be dismissed," the ruling reads.

The judgement can be appealed to the Kyiv Court of Appeal within 30 days from the day the ruling was announced.

Previously

In October 2023, the political consultant Volodymyr Petrov threatened Natalia Lyhachova, the "Detector Media" chief editor, with "punishment" which he would decide on himself. He said this in response to her critical remarks at the sixth National Media Talk conference, "Detector Media" reports.

In her speech, Lyhachova noted: "The fact that the NCTRB licensed 'Islandiya' is nonsense. They are political consultants working for the President's Office, who have no place in any telethons, on YouTube, or anywhere. Vova Petrov is the one who was once bringing titushkas to the Maidan, who beat up Olya Snitsarchuk from Channel 5, he is the one who promoted a bunch of black technologies, and now he works for the President's Office. I am very surprised why no one is telling Bankova St. that this is just a disgrace."

In December 2021, Petrov became one of the presenters on the overhauled state channel "Rada". However, he was officially suspended on the second day after comparing Angela Merkel to a pig. At that time, journalist and blogger Serhiy Ivanov announced that he would stop working with "Rada" if Petrov was suspended, but did not act on this promise. Yet three days later, Petrov was back on the air of "Rada" as an expert together with the host Ivanov.