The National Police has initiated a probe into illegal surveillance of journalists by suspects in the Midas case, MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, reported in a Facebook post after receiving the police’s reply to his parliamentary appeal.
According to Yurchyshyn, the police have entered the data into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations under number 12026105090000009. The case was preliminarily qualified under Part 1 of Article 182 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (violation of privacy).
“The suspects could have been illegally watching the media professionals, collect intelligence about their location, movements, personal contacts, etc.,” Yurchyshyn said.
The pre-trial investigation is being carried out by Maksym Konopatskyi, an investigator from the Solomyanskyi Police Department in Kyiv.
Yurchyshyn said that the Midas suspects were gathering intelligence on the following journalists: Maryna Ansiforova, Yuriy Butusov, Volodymyr Fedorin, Yuriy Nikolov, Stanislav Rechynskyi, Olha Chaika, Andriy Kulykov, as well as the late Volodymyr Mostovyi and Oleksa Shalaiskyi.
Yurchyshyn added that he intended to contact NABU to learn whether the two agencies have been in contact and whether the police requested access to documents containing the journalists’ data. Moreover, he plans to find out whether the media professionals have been interviewed as possible victims.
Previously
As IMI reported, the suspects in the Midas graft case had compiled hundreds of “dossiers” on journalists, officialsm and NABU detectives; these included 10 journalists investigating corruption such as Yuriy Nikolov and Oleksa Shalayskyi.
NABU announced a special operation to expose corruption in the energy sector on 10 November 2025. The investigation revealed that the persons involved in a criminal organisation had built a large-scale scheme to influence strategic state-sector enterprises such as Energoatom.
On 15 December 2025, MP Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, published a list of journalists whose dossiers had been compiled by the suspects in the Midas case. He received the list from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and shared it with the Bureau’s permission.
The list included: Maryna Ansiforova (COSA Intelligence Solutions, LIGA.net), Yuriy Butusov (serviceman, Censor.net chief editor), Stanislav Rechynskyi (ORD chief editor), Volodymyr Fedoryn (Forbes Ukraine chief editor), Olha Chaika (Forbes Ukraine editor), Yuriy Nikolov (NashGroshi co-founder), Andriy Kulykov (Commission for Journalist Ethics chair). It also featured two late media workers: Dzerkalo Tyzhnia founder Volodymyr Mostovyi and investigator Oleksa Shalayskyi.
It was reported in January 2026 that the police had opened proceedings over illegal stalking of journalist Yuriy Butusov.