SBU tried to take off the air "Skhemy"’s story about elite cars of its officers

The team of the investigation program “Skhemy” (joint project of Radio Liberty and the TV channel “UA:Pershyi”) complains about pressure from the Security Service of Ukraine, which demanded they take off the air the story about luxurious cars of SBU officers, Radio Liberty reports.

In an hour and a half before the broadcasting, when the program was fully prepared and changes were impossible for technical reasons, Radio Liberty received a letter signed by the head of the public relations department Olena Hitlianska with a threat of criminal responsibility for broadcasting this story.

The story in question is about luxurious automobiles used by officers of the economy security counter-intelligence unit of the SBU (the Security Service of Ukraine). This is already SBU’s second attempt to pressure "Skhemy".

Update.

The SBU’s spokesperson Olena Hitlianska informed that SBU lawyers will analyze the violations the journalists of "Skhemy" might have committed when investigating the SBU officers’ cars. Hitlianska pointed out that not all people shown in the story are in fact SBU officers but some are. And some of the officers shown in the story work in the department that protects the country’s crucial infrastructure and they will not be able to continue working as their personal information like names, positions, and faces, has  been made public by the journalists. She emphasized that what SBU asked for was not to take the story off the air but to blur the faces of SBU officers. She also promised that SBU will respond to the facts addressed in the story.