A man claiming to be a “freelance worker” attacked Slidstvo.Info journalists at the Sribne Village Council (Chernihiv oblast) and knocked the camera out of the cameraman’s hands, the media outlet reports.
The incident occurred as the crew was working on a story about a Ukrainian serviceman who was tortured and died in Russian prison and whose body was repatriated a year ago. The journalists had arrived in the village to find out how and where the soldier was buried, since some of the villagers had opposed his burial in the community’s territory.
Not finding the soldier’s grave, the filming crew went to the village council to get a comment from council chair Olena Panchenko within her reception hours. Instead, a man they met in the council building said that the top officials were absent for a “Saturday clean-up event” and threatened to call the police.
The conflict escalated when the journalists tried to check the council chair’s office. In the building’s hall, the man started physically shoving the journalist out into the street. When the cameraman raised the camera to film his actions, the attacker knocked the device to the floor with a blow of his hand.
Later, the council’s deputy chief of humanitarian issues and social policy Nina Bondarenko heard the shouting and came out. She apologised for the “misunderstanding,” but confirmed that the council chair was away.
The journalists’ attempts to find Olena Panchenko at the clean-up event yilded no result: the utility workers said that they had not seen the official.
In January, Dnipro City Council deputy Artem Khmelnykov kicked down the camera of freelance reporter Oleksandr Slavnyi, who wanted to get a comment from the official.
