Page impersonating TV and radio presenter Andriy Kulykov appears on Facebook

A Facebook page impersonating TV and radio host, co-founder of Hromadske Radio Andriy Kulykov has appeared online, as reported by his fellow radio host and Hromadske Radio co-founder, former POW Maksym Butkevych in a Facebook post.

Butkevych says that the creator of the page reached out to him pretending to be Kulykov and asked for his phone number.

“And they started sending me 'friend' requests. So: this is not Andriy Kulykov! This is someone impersonating him,” Butkevych wrote.

In a comment to the Institute of Mass Information journalist Valentyna Troyan, Andriy Kulykov said that impersonating him would be of interest to someone who wants to obtain personal information from people likely to accept a friend request supposedly from him. The presenter learned about the fake account the day before they reached out to Maksym Butkevych.

Andriy Kulykov, photo by life.pravda.com.ua

“I was walking down Khreshchatyk Street with a friend when we suddenly came across the former Minister of Agriculture, who said, 'Andriy, just half an hour ago I received a text from you on Facebook, and here we are meeting in person!' My friend says, 'Mr. Andriy does not have a Facebook account.' I confirmed this. Then the former minister did something on his phone — deleted it, apparently,” Andriy said.

He says that he did not pay it much mind because this has happened several times before. However, late on June 18, he was contacted by Hromadske Radio colleague Anastasia Bahalika, who said that the impersonator had tried to get Maksym Butkevych’s phone number by pretending to be Kulykov.

Kulykov notes that he does not refer to himself as “presenter,” which was the word in the scammer's signature.

Having learned that an account impersonating him had been created, Andriy Kulykov notified his community on X, where he does have an account, so that people would be vigilant.

On June 18, Ihor Rozkladai, deputy director at CEDEM and chief expert on media law and social media content moderation, said in a Facebook post that the fake Kulykov page had been taken down.

He added that this was the second such occurrence in the past week and emphasized that Andriy Kulykov has no Facebook account.

In May 2025, unknown persons created a Facebook account impersonating Oleksandra Matviychuk, human rights activist and head of the Center for Civil Liberties. The account was reported and taken down. Multiple public figures also faced impersonation attempts in April 2024. Namely, these were the writer, journalist, and serviceman Vakhtang Kipiani, former UAF Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, chairs of oblast military administrations, and journalist Otar Dovzhenko.