The Pechersk District Court of Kyiv has banned Slidstvo.Info, the Anti-Corruption Action Center (ANTAC), and journalist Alina Stryzhak from releasing and distributing an investigation into 143 real estate properties that the journalists discovered to be owned by the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) director’s brother, Oleksandr Sukhachov.
The ruling was passed on 6 July 2026, Slidstvo.Info and ANTAC reported.
Both organisations said that they viewed this as pressure on journalists and an attack on freedom of speech. The journalists will appeal the court’s ruling and seek to release the investigation.
ANTAC reported that Judge Serhiy Vovk had taken action to grant the claim even before it was filed, meaning that the court had not yet tried the case on the merits, since no statement of claim had been submitted yet.
At the same time, the court ruling suggests that the plaintiff only planned to request that ANTAC and Slidstvo.Info be banned from collecting and distributing information about the applicant and the SBI director, Oleksiy Sukhachov.
Slidstvo.Info journalist Maksym Savchuk, who co-authored the investigation, said that the team had worked together with ANTAC for several months investigating Oleksandr Sukhachov.
“We found many interesting things, such as 143 apartments and office spaces that have been or were owned by the elder Sukhachov, and also discovered threads leading to the State Bureau of Investigation, which is run by his brother Oleksiy Sukhachov,” the journalist said.
Savchuk said that about two weeks prior, ANTAC journalist Alina Stryzhak had reached out to the SBI director, asking him to comment on the facts discovered by the journalists. LLC Parkovyi-2, which the team found to be affiliated with Oleksandr Sukhachov, received a similar query.
However, instead of responding to the question, the company filed a statement with the Pecherskyi District Court of Kyiv on 3 July. Judge Serhiy Vovk granted it on 6 July.
“From this ruling we understand that the applicants are preparing a lawsuit targeting our investigation which is not even finished yet. And I think they are banning us from reporting anything on the business operations of the SBI director’s brother to ensure it is never finished. They are probably very well aware of how much interesting and socially important things we have found,” said Slidstvo.Info’s founding editor Anna Babinets.
ANTAC believes that the court’s ruling sets a dangerous precedent and may be used to curtail future investigations.
“This court decision is a very dangerous precedent. It directly restricts freedom of speech and bans the release of a socially important investigation. We are convinced that they are simply using ANTAC and Slidstvo.Info to test out a tool to prohibit journalists from exposing corruption. Failure to comply with this ruling will get us fined, possibly even prosecuted under criminal law, and will have multiple other consequences. We will definitely be appealing it,” said ANTAC CEO Daria Kaleniuk.
Judge Vovk ruled that posting the Oleksandr Sukhachov’s property status, the details of his acquisition of real estate, and the source of the money involved online could inflict irreversible harm on an individual that could not be mitigated after the investigation is released. In addition, the court believes that this would lead to the disclosure of Parkovyi-2’s commercial secrets. The resolution adds that the SBI director’s brother had not given the journalists permission to disclose information about the 143 real estate properties owned by him.
