Ex-judge whose Russian passport was discovered by Skhemy sues the journalist and Radio Liberty

Former judge of the Donetsk District Administrative Court Lyudmyla Arestova has filed a defamation lawsuit against the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Skhemy journalist Heorhiy Shabayev, who discovered her Russian citizenship in the summer of 2023, Radio Liberty reports.

The first preparatory hearing is to take place in the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv on December 24, at 1:00 p.m. According to public data from the court registry, the court received Arestova's lawsuit on July 15. Judge Iryna Makarenko will be trying the case.

The State Bureau of Investigation and the State Treasury Service of Ukraine are co-defendants in the case. Arestova accuses the SBI of unlawfully disclosing information about her in response to a query from Skhemy (a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty project) and demands that the Treasury pay her UAH 20,000 in moral damages for this.

Photo by Radio Liberty

Arestova is also asking the court to recover a total of UAH 180,000 in moral damages from journalist Heorhiy Shabayev and the Ukrainian service of Radio Liberty. In her lawsuit, Arestova is asking to declare the information about her Russian citizenship, reported in the Skhemy investigation released on July 13, 2023, as “unreliable and defamatory of honor, dignity and business reputation,” and to remove her photos, which Skhemy found in open sources, from the material.

Lawyer Vera Krat, who represents the media outlet in court, considers Arestova’s lawsuit against the journalists to be frivolous.

“The journalists acted in good faith in preparing the investigation in compliance with the journalistic standards and the current legislation. The rights of the plaintiff or her family members were not violated. We will prove that the journalists are in the right by all legal means,” Krat said.

On December 10, the High Council of Justice dismissed Lyudmyla Arestova from the position of judge of the Donetsk District Administrative Court due to her Russian citizenship.

Skhemy released their investigation into the Russian citizenship of Donetsk District Administrative Court judge Lyudmyla Arestova in July 2023. They cited an extract from the automated system Rospasport. The document indicates that Arestova received her Russian passport on the basis of the “agreement on the accession of Crimea to Russia” in 2014. According to it, citizens of Ukraine and stateless persons who were permanently residing on the peninsula at that time were recognized as citizens of Russia.

Skhemy also found evidence of Arestova using her Russian passport: in May 2014, Arestova flew to Moscow. On May 11, she flew on a Simferopol-Domodedovo flight and returned to Crimea three days later. In both cases, the judge used the Russian passport.

In her comment to Skhemy, Judge Arestova denied holding Russian citizenship.