The Zakarpattia Oblast National Police has closed two proceedings under Articles 171 (obstruction of lawful reporting) and 182 (violation of privacy) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which concerned online harassment of journalist Olena Mudra, citing “absence of a corpus delicti” as the reason.
Mudra received the ruling to this effect on 13 August, she reported in a Facebook post.
She says that the investigations were about the harassment campaign she faced due to her reporting that had lasted more than three months.
The media professional believes the pressure was triggered by her reporting on the construction of wind farms in the Carpathians. Mudra added that three lawsuits which she views as SLAPP have been filed against her. Two of them are currently under review at the Zakarpattia Commercial Court and the Zakarpattia Court of Appeal.
“I received a ruling closing two proceedings under Articles 171 and 182 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which had been opened following my report of a large-scale online harassment campaign that lasted more than three months, due to the absence of a corpus delicti,” Olena Mudra said.
She added that this is not the first time the regional police have handled matters related to her reporting in such a way. The journalist has contacted Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, requesting an assessment of the Zakarpattia Police’s handling of cases concerning the rights of journalists.
Updated. Olena Mudra said in a comment to IMI journalist Valentyna Troyan that she had shared the ruling with Yuriy Melnyk, a lawyer with the Human Rights Platform, who is now looking into the possibility of an appeal.
“I haven’t personally been in contact with the police as to why they concluded there was no corpus delicti in the prolonged online harassment campaign against me over my reporting. The investigator handling the two proceedings based on my statements, in which the alleged offences were classified under Articles 171 and 182 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, sent me a 12-page document justifying the decision to close the proceedings. And I doubt I would have heard anything more than that anyway,” the journalist said.
Previously
On 9 June 2025, Zakarpattia-based investigator journalist Olena Mudra said she was being targeted in a smear campaign in the media. She believes the campaign was triggered by her reporting. She said that several disreputable media outlets had published a deceptive article with false information about her sources of income (alleging she works for Russia and Russian money) and her family.
Olena believes that these incidents are connected with her investigations into the work of LLC Wind Parks Ukraine in Zakarpattia oblast.
Olena Mudra filed a police statement on obstruction of her lawful reporting and violation of her privacy on 27 June 2025. The data was entered into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations (URPTI) on the following day, 28 June.
On 24 February 2026, NGL.media team collected clues that could lead to the persons responsible for the large-scale smear campaign targeting the Zakarpattia-based investigative journalist Olena Mudra, who reported on the potentially illegal wind power plant construction in the Runa valley.
On 14 May 2026, the police closed the proceedings against Zakarpattia-based journalist Olena Mudra, triggered by a letter signed “Marik Fedirko”.
On 22 July 2026, the Vynohradiv District Court in Zakarpattia oblast opened proceedings on a motion filed by journalist Olena Mudra, who sought to have the claims about her promoted as part of a coordinated online campaign declared false
Later, the journalist’s lawyer Yuriy Melnyk explained that prosecuting the people behind the coordinated smear campaign against the Zakarpattia-based journalist Olena Mudra is difficult due to the anonymity of the online resources involved.