The State Bureau of Investigation has searched the home of Oleksiy Babenko, owner of the drone manufacturing business Vyriy Industries and a shareholder of the online news outlet Babel, Babel reports.
The homes of Babenko’s brother and mother and the company’s office were also searched.
The media outlet writes that the law enforcers found $3,500 in cash in Babenko’s apartment and seized all data from his mobile phone. Babenko is suspected of allegedly overstating the cost of the company’s products and making fictitious agreements.
The SBI has been unable to confirm these reports officially.
Babel has previously reported that a smear campaign targeting the news outlet and Vyriy Industries had began in anonymous Telegram channels and Facebook communities following the release of their investigation into torture faced by servicemembers in the Skelia Assault Regiment.
Dozens of posts and videos claimed that the investigation was written at Oleksiy Bondarenko’s request as part of his ongoing confrontation with the UAF General Staff and that it was beneficial to Russia. A few days ago, anonymous Telegram channels falsely reported that Babenko’s home had been searched, sharing a fake photo and claiming that investigators had found $5 million in his apartment.
Drones produced by Vyriy Industries are considered one of the cheapest available in Ukraine, leading to the company occupying a significant share of the market.
The company issued an official statement following the searches.
Previously
On 23 June 2026, Babel released an investigation into the non-combat deaths of at least 26 recruits in the Skelia Assault Regiment No. 425 that occurred in late 2025 — spring 2026. The journalists discovered that most of the servicemembers died of pneumonia, cardiovascular and other diseases shortly after being drafted. Families of some of the deceased reported possible violence in the unit.
The Skelia Regiment said that the authors of the news story were making generalisations, reducing the unit’s history to one-off tragic instances. They claim that most of the deaths mentioned in the investigation occurred in hospitals or on the way to them and were related to the recruits’ health.
The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets reported that possible violations of servicemembers’ rights at Skelia were being verified.
The State Bureau of Investigation opened proceedings under Part 5 of Article 426-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Excess of authority or official powers by a military official, committed under martial law, which caused grave consequences”) based on Babel’s report.
On 25 June, Azad Safarov, producer with the UK channel Sky News, reported that an unknown man fired at the channel’s car at close range in March 2025 as the crew was filming a news story about the Skelia unit. The crew’s driver was in the car at the moment of the shooting.
On the same day, Babel reported violent threats by Mykola Kharkhan (call sign “Kyianyn”), a serviceman in the Skelia Assault Regiment No. 425 after the release of their news story about a series of non-combat deaths in the regiment.
On 1 July, the Media Movement and the Ukrainian media community issued a joint statement demanding that law enforcement bodies investigate the threats to Babel journalists that were made after the release of the Skelia investigation.
