Police say they may find out who ordered the Nikolov apartment break-in attempt, as the organizer has been identified

Photo by Yuriy Nikolov on Facebook

The police believe that finding the mastermind of the attack on the apartment of journalist Yury Nikolov is possible. They hope that the organizer, who has already been identified, will tell them about it.

The first deputy head and the head of investigations at the National Police of Ukraine, Maksym Tsutskiridze, said this in his interview with Censor.Net.

According to him, the organizer was identified during the interrogations of the perpetrators of the attack.

"During the interrogations, the organizer who had recruited other participants of this 'action' through a Telegram channel was identified. Now we need to find who was above the organizer, that is, whether anyone commissioned the attack," he said.

Tsutskiridze considers finding that person a realistic outcome.

"Why would it be unrealistic? The organizer's cooperation with the investigation relies on how much information he gives. Of course, in addition to his testimony, we will examine his communications in the days before the event. That is, with whom he was in contact, where he was in terms of location. We have the resources for this," he said.

When asked if he knows who the likely mastermind is, Tsutzkiridze replied: "There is a person who claims to be the one. But even these testimonies need to be carefully verified."

He also says that the men who attacked Nikolov's apartment had previously received $1000 in total.

However, no one has yet been served with a suspicion notice in this case. The perpetrators were released because the Criminal Code article under which the case is being investigated is not a grave crime, Tsutzkiridze explained.

"This is Part 3 of Article 171. This qualification does not allow us to detain them, because the sanction of the article does not list detention. If we detain them, tomorrow the State Bureau of Investigation will come and ask us why they are being unlawfully detained even though we know that the article does not allow this," said the head of investigations.

Background

On January 15, investigative journalist Yuriy Nikolov reported an attempt at intimidation: unknown men tried to break into his apartment on January 14, scaring his mother and neighbors, and left paper notes saying "draft dodger" and "traitor" on his door. After the incident, the Telegram channel "Kartochny Ofis" posted about it, claiming that it was military servicemen trying to deliver a draft notice to the journalist. A provocative post about Yuri Nikolov was shared by the Telegram channels "Vertykal" and "Joker" at about the same time. On January 15, the Telegram channel "Joker" posted the video of Nikolov's comment on President Volodymyr Zelensky and implied that the attack on the journalist's apartment was retaliation for his remark about the head of state.

On January 19, the police started a case over pressuring the investigative journalist Yury Nikolov to prevent him from performing his professional duties and persecuting the latter due to his reporting (Part 2 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). 

On January 21 the police said they identified five people who tried to break into the apartment of investigative journalist Yury Nikolov.

On January 26, 2024 Yuriy Nikolov reported that that the police released the five men who had tried to break into his apartment.

On January 28, Zhytomyr.city posted an address by two men on its YouTube channel. The men introduced themselves as Dmytro and Denys and claimed that an SBU employee named Oleksiy ordered them to attack journalist Yuriy Nikolov's apartment. According to Zhytomyr.city, the men decided that they had been used "for some weird game" and mustered the courage for an open video interview.