Police identifies man who threatened Hromadske Radio host Maryana Chorniyevych

Hromadske Radio host Maryana Chorniyevych received a threatening email following the May 8 livestream of the program “That Same Morning”. Contacting the cyber police helped identify the man who had sent the threats, Maryana Chorniyevych tells the Institute of Mass Information representative Valentyna Troyan.

According to her, the program discussed the Ukrainians' attitudes to May 9 and the way of the topic of World War II is handled in schools.

Maryana Chorniyevych. Photo by Maryana Chorniyevych on Facebook

The journalist says she focused on the findings of a survey by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, which showed that as of 2025 only 11% of Ukrainians are in favour of Victory Day being celebrated. For comparison, in 2010 this figure was 58%. These numbers sparked an intense reaction from listeners.

“This is a huge difference. I focused on it a lot. After the livestream, I checked my social media and email and noticed that I had received a letter. At first I thought it was spam, because it was in Russian,” the radio host said.

However, upon opening the email she realized that it was addressed to her personally. The sender had listened to the entire livestream and went through all the topics that Maryana had touched on the air.

“The person said that if I continued to speak negatively about Russia and undermine it, he would leak my photos in a pornographic video and post it to social media,” the host added.

She said that this was the first time she had encountered such a threat, and she reported it to the chief editor. After that, she filed a complaint with the cyber police.

“I filed a statement, it was registered. I explained what happened, and within two hours we knew the man’s full name, his residence address, date of birth and even his personal phone number. He lives in the temporarily occupied territories,” the host said.

The media professional hopes that after the de-occupation he will receive a “pleasant surprise” from the Ukrainian state.

In a comment to IMI representative Valentyna Troyan, Hromadske Radio chief editor Viktoria Yermolaeva emphasized that the media outlet had also appealed to the Cyber ​​Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine with a request for an appropriate response.

Viktoria Yermolayeva. Photo by Viktoria Yermolayeva on Facebook

“Unfortunately, I cannot protect the team from such incidents, but I do know what to do if a situation like this occurs again,” Viktoria Yermolayeva noted.

As the IMI reported, Hromadske Radio is asking their audience to help them survive.