Three State Guard officers brought to disciplinary responsibility for attack against journalists of "Skhemy"

Based on the results of the internal investigation, three officers of the Department of the State Guard of Ukraine will be brought to disciplinary responsibility due to the incident with the journalist of "Skhemy" on September 15. This is reported at the website of the Department of State Guard. “The officers of State Guard also received additional training for compliance with the Ukrainian Army Forces Regulations on polite conduct of the military”, the message reads. Still, the head of the State Guard Valeriy Heletey said that the officers of his department are somewhat limited in their interactions with mass media, as their primary concern is safety of high officials and foreign leaders visiting Ukraine. Heletey said that his department is open for communication with the representatives of mass media, and plans to conduct a round table with mass media representatives to work out common mechanisms to prevent similar incidents in the future. As IMI reported before, on September 15 the officers of the Department of State Guard attacked the filming crew of “Skhemy” near a restaurant in Koncha-Zaspa, where the President, the Prime Minister, Vice Speaker of the Parliament and other high officials were supposedly celebrating the wedding of Yuriy Lutsenko's son (Yuriy Lutsenko is current Prosecutor General). When the President of Ukraine was supposed to leave the closed party, the journalists were attacked by the State Guard officers, and the cameraman Borys Trotsenko was injured. The journalists filed a complaint to the police for impediment to lawful journalist activities. In earlier statements, head of the State Guard Heletey claimed that there was no attack and that the officer that attacked the cameraman "just tripped and hit him on accident".