The Secretariat of the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights has opened proceedings regarding the actions of the President’s Office (PO) following a complaint by journalist Danylo Mokryk, Mokryk reported in a Facebook post, attaching the letter from the Commissioner’s Secretariat.

The journalist said he had contacted the Commissioner due to the PO’s refusal to disclose the information he requested, which concerned the decision to discard his petition calling for a press conference with Volodymyr Zelensky.

In his complaint, Mokryk asked the Commissioner to hold the PO staff administratively liable and to order them to provide answers to the following questions:

  • what specific requirements the petition had failed to meet;
  • who exactly (position and full name) ruled that the petition did not meet the requirements;
  • and a request for a copy of the decision.

The journalist said that instead of sharing the requested data, the PO sent him a “formal non-reply” in which no information was provided.

In a later dated 2 September 2026 (the following day after the complaint being filed), the Commissioner’s Secretariat responded that a decision had been made to open proceedings concerning potential violation of human and civil rights and freedoms.

Previously

President Zelensky last held a press conference following the “Ukraine. Year 2025” forum in February 2025. There have been no large-scale, open press conferences with the President that would involve a broad range of Ukrainian media outlets — a concern journalists have previously raised.

On 27 August 2026, a petition calling for a separate, open press conference with Zelensky involving independent and critically minded media outlets was published on the President’s website.

The petition was also backed by Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, who said that society needed direct dialogue with the President and that the largely one-way communication format of evening addresses no longer met public demand.

On 1 September 2026, journalists from several independent Ukrainian media outlets recorded a video with questions they would like to put to Zelenskyi. They said they did this because they had no opportunity to ask him these questions in person at an open press conference.

As of late 2 September, the petition had gathered more than 17,000 of the 25,000 signatures required for it to be considered.

The Kyiv Independent journalist Danylo Mokryk has filed a complaint with the Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights against Ukraine’s President’s Office over their refusal to publish his online petition calling for a press conference with Volodymyr Zelenskyi.