The Verkhovna Rada Freedom of Speech Committee chair, Holos MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn has sent parliamentary addesses to Dmytro Lubinets, the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, the National Police, the Prosecutor General’s Office, and the State Bureau of Investigation, requesting a probe to verify the reports of illegal collection and dissemination of intelligence on journalists by the defendants in the Midas case, and asking that legal action be taken against these illegal activities, Yurchyshyn reported in a Facebook post.

“This is a greeting from the 90s, when the state system did not understand what to do with the media. Because the law does not allow you to ‘reign them in’ anymore, but you still can if you really want to. Free media were becoming unfree due to pressure from law enforcement bodies. And the remaining independent journalists had to keep their guard up at all times,” the MP wrote.

He also recalled the early 2010s, when the Regions Party came to power and started gathering “dossiers” on journalists who disagreed with their policies. Yurchyshyn said that these efforts targeted those who investigated corruption, “which had grown too large-scale under Yanukovych’s command”.

“Operation Midas revealed that the suspects had dossiers on 10 journalists marked ‘for official use, no distribution allowed.’ The existence of such ‘dossiers’ may point to unlawful actions by the officials. And these suggest a violation of the Law of Ukraine ‘On the Protection of Personal Data’, as well as offenses provided for by Articles 182, 361–364 of the Criminal Code”, the MP explained.

Previously

NABU announced a special operation to expose corruption in the energy sector on 10 November 2025. The investigation revealed that the persons involved in a criminal organisation had built a large-scale scheme to influence strategic state-sector enterprises such as Energoatom.

Law enforcement operatives detained five of the seven suspects. These included a businessman whom the investigation considers the head of the criminal organisation, a former advisor to the Minister of Energy, and Energoatom’s executive director for physical protection and security.

Suspicion notices were issued to businessman, Kvartal-95 studio co-founder Timur Mindich (code name “Carlson” on NABU tapes), former advisor to the Minister of Energy, Ihor Myroniuk (“Rocket”), Energoatom’s executive director for security, Dmytro Basov (“Tenor”), and four “employees” of the so-called “money laundering back office”, including Oleksandr Zukerman (“Sugarman”), Ihor Fursenko (“Ryoshik”), Lesya Ustymenko, and Lyudmyla Zorina. Five people from the list of suspects have been detained. Two, Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Zukerman, have left Ukraine.

The suspects in the Midas case had been gathering intelligence on dozens of people including journalists, ministers and their deputies, and Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) employees.