Slidstvo.Info has been targeted in an online smear campaign, with several websites posting identical news stories criticising their director Anna Babinets within half an hour, chief editor Nastya Stanko reported in a comment to Detector Media.
The news were based on a Facebook post by blogger and self-proclaimed “politics expert” Mykhailo Sneider, who on 28 May accused Babinets of causing “irreparable reputational damage” to the journalism award “Honor of the Profession”. Multiple news resources shared the post almost simultaneously.
Starting 18:09, Slidstvo.Info received a series of mention notifications from a monitoring bot. Within 30 minutes, six identical articles were published in Ukrainian and Russian by UNIAN, Glavred, and Ukrainski Novyny.
Nastya Stanko believes that may be aiming to discredit the media because of its recent investigation revealing that Viktor Medvedchuk’s stepson Bohdan Marchenko received Russian citizenship after the start of the full-scale invasion and runs a business in the occupied part of Donetsk oblast.
Stanko said that she had not known who Mykhailo Sneider was before the incident. She later found mentions of him in the database of pseudo-sociologists and covert PR experts by Texty.org.ua. According to the database, in 2018 Sneider was doing PR for Viktor Medvedchuk in 2018 and was involved in a 2019 smear campaign targeting Yevheniy Murayev during his conflict with Medvedchuk and Vadym Rabinovych. The talking points pushed by Sneider at the time were identical to those by commentators closely affiliated with Medvedchuk and Rabinovych, Texty.org.ua reports.
“It’s hard to say who commissioned this. But I don’t think that a journalism contest is interesting enough to the broad audience for identical news about ‘Honor of the Profession’ to be posted within 30 minutes. It matters to us as media professionals, but I very much doubt that some pseudo-experts would genuinely care so much. I am sure that this was used as an excuse to try to somehow smear our investigative agency,” said Stanko.
Detector Media has reached out to UNIAN, Glavred, and Ukrainski Novyny for comment.
On 20 May, Slidstvo.Info director and “Honor of the Profession” judge Anna Babinets withdrew her assessment of all 50 works in the “Best Investigation” nomination, citing a conflict of interest. Slidstvo.Info later withdrew their investigations from the previously announced shortlist.
On 22 May, the award’s supervisory board cancelled the list of “Best Investigation” finalists, which had been made public on 18 May 2026, and decided to re-assess the works this nomination.
On 27 May, the supervisory board announced an updated shortlist in the “Best Investigation” nomination.
