Yulia Boychenko, journalist with the news website MykVisti, faced harrassment on social media following the release of her news story about Mykolaiv’s new water supply system, which she wrote after a tour organised by the Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration (OMA), reports Kateryna Sereda, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Mykolaiv obalst.

Local activist Valeriy Prud made a Facebook post featuring the journalist’s photo and making allegations against her. The news outlet views this as public pressure and a smear attempt in retaliation for Boychenko’s professional reporting.

The news story in question was released on 17 December 2025, following a tour organised by the Mykolaiv OMA: the journalists were shown around water intake facilities and given an overivew of the water purification process. The news outlet’s story featured a description of what they had seen during the tour and an explanation of how the water is processed, when the people of Mykolaiv will get access to “drinkable” water, and how this will affect its price.

However, following the release of the article, activist Valeriy Prud made a post using the journalist’s photo and effectively singling her out as the one to blame for possible risks to the city.

“This madam decided that it was time to bring enemy strikes on the new Mykolaiv water pipeline. Chasing after hype can cost the people of Mykolaiv dearly. We’ve been through this before. Can counterintelligence calm such hypemongers? The article includes photos of the water pipeline and a lot of specifics to make its destruction easy. I don’t want to help the occupiers. And the newspaper’s website is not hard to find,” Mykolaiv’s local Valeriy Prud wrote on Facebook.

He attached a screenshot of Yulia Boychenko’s profile page on the MykVisti website, which lists her contact information and the office’s address.

The post by activist Valeriy Prud featuring a photo of MykVisti journalist Yulia Boychenko and making allegations against her. Screenshot from Facebook

Yulia Boychenko commented the post, saying that those present during the press tour included not just media workers but also representatives of central government and local authorities, and that journalists had been briefed on security.

“It was an official tour, organised by the Mykolaiv OMA, to the water supply and processing facilities being built for Mykolaiv. Besides our team, there were representatives of other media outlets who have also released news stories on their respective resources. There were representatives of central, regional, and city authorities. Do you think journalists would have been allowed there if this was classified information? Media representatives were briefed on what we could film and publish and what we could not. So the article only features the photos and information that meet the security requirements. There was no hypemongering. The article aims to show people what the state was spending considerable money on, the scale of these works. And lastly. The war has been going on for several years. An Orlan can see a lot even without this article,” Yulia Boychenko wrote in the comments to the post.

The news outlet says that the article was of public interest because water supply has been a key issue for Mykolaiv in wartime. At the same time, the editorial board views the public allegations against the journalist personally and the use of her photo in a negative context as an attempt to exert pressure on Boychenko and discredit the media outlet, MykVisti head Oleh Derenyuha told IMI in a comment.

“We plan to file a statement with the police to that effect and to sue for defamation,” Oleh Derenyuha said.

He added that such targeted social media posts, including a journalist’s photo and personal allegations, are unacceptable and potentially constitute intimidation. In his opinion, a journalist being singled out, cast as a villain and implicated in potential threats or “provoking air strikes” is a form or pressure.

“Such posts create a dangerous precedent: instead of discussing the content of the article, focus is shifted to the journalist’s person and prompts the audience to join a hate campaign. This can have a chilling effect, causing journalists to avoid socially important topics, in particular critical infrastructure, due to the risk of public harrassment and smear campaigns,” Oleh Derenyuha explained.

It should be noted that the Mykolaiv Oblast Military Administration, the State Agency for Infrastructure Restoration and Development, the Mykolaiv City Council, as well as other local media outlets that attended the press tour have also released material with photos and information about the operation of water intake facilities and the construction of water processing facilities for the Mykolaiv water supply system.

According to public registers, Valeriy Prud is the founder of the NGO Ukrainian Association of ATO Combatants and Volunteers in Mykolaiv Oblast, calls himself a volunteer. In 2014, after the beginning of the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation), he was the deputy commander of the so-called People’s Militia of Mykolaiv Oblast – a volunteer-based group that emerged in Mykolaiv in response to the Russian sabotage threat. In 2020, Valeriy Prud ran for the Mykolaiv City Council from the Palchevskyi’s Victory party.

Earlier, Mykolaiv police opened a probe following MykVisti’s reporting on meals in the city’s schools.