The Anti-Corruption Action Centre (ANTAC) says that pro-Russian blogger Vsevolod Filimonenko has resumed participation in hearings in the case against ANTAC Chair Vitaly Shabunin after a prolonged absence. The organisation suggests the change might have to do with the latest developments in the proceedings against Shabunin.
As the organisation says, the case against Vitaly Shabunin, which involved Filimonenko, was opened in 2017. Filimonenko has been consistently failing to attend the hearings since June 2020.
However, he took part in the 15 January 2026 hearing and has been consistently discussing the Shabunin case on his Telegram channel, ANTAC notes.
The organisation believes that the authorities are using this tactic to continue pressure on Vitaliy Shabunin: “Given Filimonenko’s sudden online appearance in court, we at ANTAC are certain that the authorities are purposefully involving him in the process in order to step up the pressure on Vitaliy Shabunin. This could happen in exchange for, say, Filimonenko’s removal from the sanctions list.”
ANTAC noted that Vitaliy Shabunin had been conscripted into the Ukrainian Armed Forces in February 2022.
In July 2025, the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) opened a case against Shabunin for alleged “draft dodging.” International and human rights organisations viewed this as pressure on Shabunin related to his public activism.
The ANTAC added that Vsevolod Filimonenko began claiming to be “an advisor to the Ternopil Oblast Administration chair” in January 2026 but deleted this information from his social media profiles on 20 January.
The ANTAC remarked that they doubt the accuracy of this information because the very idea of a sanctioned person living abroad holding such a position is absurd. The Anti-Corruption Action Centre will contact the Ternopil Oblast Administration to learn whether Filimonenko really has advisor status.
Who is Vsevolod Filimonenko
Vsevolod Filimonenko is a Ukrainian national and a blogger who participated in a commissioned campaign targeting the Anti-Corruption Centre chair Vitaliy Shabunin. He left Ukraine in 2019.
In 2017, Filimonenko provoked Shabunin into a fight; the latter was then notified of suspicion for inflicting moderate bodily harm on Filimonenko. The case was later requalified and Shabunin was charged with Part 2 of Article 345-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine “Threats or violence against a journalist”, since Filimonenko claimed to be a journalist.
Shabunin has said that the case against him was initiated by political figures whose interests could be harmed by his anti-corruption work. Yuriy Lutsenko, who was Ukraine’s Prosecutor General at the time, said that he considered Vsevolod Filimonenko a provocateur.
On 9 February 2018, the Dniprovskyi District Court of Kyiv began trial on merits in Shabunin’s case. However, Filimonenko was absent from the hearings for several years, Shabunin says.
In 2024, Vsevolod Filimonenko was featured in a propaganda film by Russia’s Perviy Kanal, titled “Zelenskyi and His Combat Drug Addicts” and aimed to discredit the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The film presents Filimonenko as a “Euromaidan activist” who says that “drugs were supplied to the Maidan en masse and in unlimited quantities” at that time and that the tea given out to the protesters was laced with doping.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyi imposed sanctions against Vsevolod Filimonenko in September 2025.
YouTube suspended Filimonenko’s channel in Ukraine shortly after.