The Solomyanskyi Police Department of Kyiv city is investigating the profiling of Ukrainian journalists as part of the “Midas” case, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, chair of the parliamentary Freedom of Speech Committee (Holos party) reported in a Facebook post, citing a response by the police.

“Are you satisfied with this pace? Because I don’t quite understand why this decision wasn’t made immediately following the TIC (Temporary Investigation Commission — Ed.) meeting where the real facts of surveillance were reported. Why did we have to wait and write parliamentary addresses for proceedings to be opened? And would the proceedings be opened if we hadn’t pushed for it publicly?” Yurchyshyn wrote.

He stressed that the response should be instant in a democracy, especially in wartime.

“Independent media are our eyes in the fight against the enemy without and within alike. Closing our eyes is like shooting ourselves in the foot,” Yurchyshyn said.

The MP added that the defendants were gathering intelligence on Maryna Ansiforova, Yuriy Butusov, Volodymyr Fedorin, Yuriy Nikolov, Stanislav Rechynskyi, Olha Chayka, Andriy Kulykov, and the late journalists Volodymyr Mostovyi and Oleks Shalaiskyi.

Previously

NABU announced a special operation to expose corruption in the energy sector on 10 November 2025. The investigation revealed that the persons involved in a criminal organisation had built a large-scale scheme to influence strategic state-sector enterprises such as Energoatom.

Law enforcement operatives detained five of the seven suspects. These included a businessman whom the investigation considers the head of the criminal organisation, a former advisor to the Minister of Energy, and Energoatom’s executive director for physical protection and security.

Suspicion notices were issued to businessman, Kvartal-95 studio co-founder Timur Mindich (code name “Carlson” on NABU tapes), former advisor to the Minister of Energy, Ihor Myroniuk (“Rocket”), Energoatom’s executive director for security, Dmytro Basov (“Tenor”), and four “employees” of the so-called “money laundering back office”, including Oleksandr Zukerman (“Sugarman”), Ihor Fursenko (“Ryoshik”), Lesya Ustymenko, and Lyudmyla Zorina. Five people from the list of suspects have been detained. Two, Timur Mindich and Oleksandr Zukerman, have left Ukraine.

The suspects in the Midas graft case had compiled “dossiers” on dozens of people including journalists, ministers and deputy ministers, and SBU operatives.