One of the Telegram chats used to coordinate rallies protesting the dismissal of Mykhailo Fedorov from the post of Ukraine’s Defense Minister was taken down following the detention of its administrator, Vitaliy Kamka, Arkadiy Petrosian, one of the protest organisers, said during a rally on 7 August, reports the ZMINA Human Rights Centre. In a comment to Hromadske, Kyiv police denied that any force had been used against Vitaliy Kamka or that his phone had been confiscated.
This was confirmed to the outlet by protest participant Serhiy Motrenko, who had been in contact with Kamka. Motenko said that Kamka went by the social media pseudonym Vitaliy Pavuk and ran the Protest chat, which had around 770 members.
The members reported that Pavuk’s account posted a message to the chat late on 7 August, announcing his decision to enlist in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The chat was deleted shortly after.
Vitaliy Kamka has said on social media that he had not written the post and had not deleted the chat. He claimed that following his detention, a police investigator accessed his Telegram account, posted the message, and deleted the resource.
Serhiy Motrenko told ZMINA that the text message seemed atypical for Kamka, but stressed that he did not know the exact details of who wrote it and how.
As reported by to ZMINA, Kamka has written on social media that he had been stopped by police on 7 August while riding a motorcycle; the police had said that he was absent from his army unit without leave (AWOL).
Kamka was then taken to the Bila Tserkva office of the Military Law Enforcement Service (MLES). He has said on social media that he had been handcuffed to a bed there, and shared photos and footage confirming this.
Serhiy Motrenko later shared a recording of his conversation with Kamka, in which he said that he had been taken to military unit A7017 in Cherkasy. Kamka added that no physical force had been used against him, but that he had been handcuffed for long periods of time both on the road and while in custody.
ZMINA journalists have reached out to the Bila Tserkva MLES office and the MLES HQ for public relations for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.
The MLES position will be reported as soon as it is received.
Anna Strashko, spokeswoman for the Kyiv city police department, told Hromadske that the incident occurred on 7 August in the Podilskyi district, where officers stopped Kamka for violating traffic regulations: he had been riding his motorcycle down the sidewalk. A document check revealed that the man was a servicemember listed as absent from his unit without leave.
“During the conversation, he agreed to report to the Military Law Enforcement Service. He arrived there and was handed over to the MLES,” Anna Strashko said.
The spokeswoman stressed that police officers had not used any coercion against the detainee and had not confiscated his device. “Nobody took his phone away, as some posts have claimed — nothing like that happened,” she added.
As previously reported, Ukrainian news websites covering the leadership crisis following the Defence Minister’s dismissal cited Mykhailo Fedorov more frequently than President Volodymyr Zelenskyi.
