The Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Dnipro has overturned a police decision to close proceedings concerning the obstruction of lawful reporting faced by Dnipro.media journalists during a Dnipro City Council session. The court found the inquiry incomplete and passed the case materials back to the police for further investigation.
The ruling was issued on 4 September 2026 in response to a complaint filed by Dnipro.media journalist Maria Onyshchenko, chief editor Nika Yehorova reported to Kateryna Lysiuk, the Institute of Mass Information’s representative in Dnipropetrovsk oblast.
The proceedings under Part 1, Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Obstruction of lawful reporting”) was opened following an incident that occurred on 10 December 2025, when Maria Onyshchenko and her colleague Anastasia Taran, who had come to cover a Dnipro City Council session, were denied access to the open balcony in the session hall.
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On 30 March 2026, the police closed the proceedings, having ruled that the officials’ actions did not consitutite a crime. Onyshchenko contested the decision.
The court granted her motion, overturned the police’s ruling, and passed the case materials back to the investigators for the inquiry to continue. The verdict is not subject to appeal and took legal effect the moment it was announced.
Court points out gaps in the investigation
The court’s ruling says that, Maria Onyshchenko was questioned (as a victim) during the inquiry, as were Dnipro City Council stuff (as witnesses). However, their testimonies contradicted one another, and the police failed to resolve these discrepancies, e.g. by re-interrogating multiple people at the same time.
Moreover, the investigator did not analyse the video footage provided by the victim, which was included in the case files. The court described this footage as “an objective source of information.”
The investigating judge concluded that the ruling to close the proceedings contained no analysis of this footage, and that the inquiry had been incomplete.
At the same time, the court did not determine whether the journalists’ lawful reporting had in fact been obstructed. This question is to be examined further within the proceedings.
On 4 September, the court overturned the ruling to close the criminal proceedings and passed the case files back to the police for the investigation to continue.
Previously
Anastasia Taran and Maria Onyshchenko, journalists with the news website Dnipro.media, were not allowed to attend the 10 December 2025 plenary session in the Dnipro City Council’s session hall. Depsite carrying reporter IDs and having been approved to access the building, they were barred from entering the open balcony where journalists usually work for about 30–40 minutes. Security guards with the municipal company Munitsypalna Varta and Council officials gave no specific reasons for the restrictions, citing “the regulations”.
Maria Onyshchenko called the police and filed a statement on obstruction of reporting.
The police refused to enter the data into the Unified Register of Pre-Trial Investigations (URPI) at first. On 17 February 2026, the Shevchenkivsky District Court of Dnipro declared the refusal unlawful and ordered the police to open an investigation into the incident.
On 14 March, the police opened a case under Part 1 Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Obstruction of lawful reporting”).
On 12 August 2026, Maria Onyshchenko learned that the police had closed the proceedings on 30 March, having found no corpus delicti.
