Zakarpattia journzlist Olena Mudra reports smear campaign against her

Olena Mudra, photo by the IRPD

Zakarpattia-based investigator journalist Olena Mudra says she is being targeted by a smear campaign in the media. She believes the campaign was triggered by her reporting, Olena tells the Institute of Mass Information.

She said that several disreputable media outlets published a deceptive article with false information about her sources of income (alleging she works for Russia and Russian money) and her family.

Namely, the article was published by From-UA on June 2 and Bahnet on June 7. It was then reprinted from From-UA by several other media outlets, including Znayu.Ua, Bahnet, Vlasti.Net, Informator, and Akcenty.

Besides Olena, the campaign targets other environmentalists such as Oksana Stanukevych-Volosyanchuk of the NGO Ecosfera, activist Natalia Vyshnevska, and lawyer Natalia Maistrenko.

The mention of Olena Mudra in the From-Ua article, screenshot from From-Ua by the IMI

Bahnet website, which posted an article mentioning Olena Mudra. Screenshot from Bahnet by the IMI

The article alleges that the activists are being “generously funded by Russian agencies” and Medvedchuk’s funds, accuses them of “hampering green energy development, which threatens the monopoly of Russian energy resources” and of lobbying for the Russian energy companies Gazprom and Rosneft. The article also says that Olena Mudra and the other environmentalists are affiliated with the media outlet Zakarpattia Online and alleges that one of the media outlet's servers is located in Russia and that some IP addresses used to run the website are linked to Russia via geolocation.

The article features photos of an address to the National Security and Defense Council, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the National Police, demanding that the IP addresses associated with the media outlet be checked and the persons running the portal be identified.

For her part, Olena says she has been working with the above-mentioned environmentalists for over a year on a campaign to preserve the Carpathian highlands and oppose the construction of over two hundred windmills by LLC Wind Parks Ukraine. She is involved as a journalist and covers the campaign in Zakarpattia Online, which came under attack for being a news platform.

“This is a pre-planned, fairly large-scale campaign to discredit me as a journalist and the local environmentalist community which advocates for preserving the ecosystems of the Ukrainian Carpathian highlands, saving them from wind energy projects that can destroy them. The media outlet Zakarpattia Online, which provides the community with a platform, is also under attack. I am one of the targets because I report on the conservation campaign as part of my work in journalism,” said Olena Mudra.

Olena denies the allegations, saying that the community is not against developing wind energy, including in the Carpathians.

“The issue lies with the locations chosen for these projects – the highlands covered by international environmental obligations, surrounded by ancient forests and Natural Reserve Fund objects. It is impossible to build wind farms here without violating environmental, forestry, and urban planning legislation,” the journalist said.

Regarding the address to law enforcement agencies, Olena Mudra suggests that it is a way to "legitimize" covert investigative actions against her as a journalist.

"The rumors originated on websites featured in various anti-rankings: From-Ua and Bahnet, which publish manipulative and unreliable news. They, in turn, cite the website Novyny Zakarpattia, which in late May was the first to spread fake news about a 'ban' on the party Hungarians of Zakarpattia, used by Orban's government to provoke an international scandal. Who benefits from smearing me and the environmentalist community? Even though neither the masterminds nor the executors of the campaign mention their names, LLC Wind Parks Ukraine will benefit from this. Companies of this business group have by now illegally begun to install the foundations for wind turbines for a wind power plant in the Rivna valley (Runa, as it is called in the local dialect), without an EIA (environmental impact assessment, – Ed.), the procedure for obtaining which was suspended due to an ongoing trial,” the journalist noted.

She added that Wind Parks Ukraine has filed two defamation lawsuits against her with the Vynohradiv District Court (cases No. 299/2199/25 and 299/2575/25, with demands for damages of UAH 50,000 each). The company believes that the information that it had started wind turbine construction and installation work before receiving a conclusion of the environmental impact assessment is untrue and the company is not in violation of any laws.

Olena Mudra also denied the allegations regarding Russian financing.

“I have been writing investigations on environmental topics since 2017. Since I am a regional journalist, my focus is on environment law violations and eco-crimes in the Zakarpattia region. Working for grant money, I have never received support from Hungary or from private foundations of politicians or oligarchs from any country,” she said.

Olena added that her son graduated from a military lyceum in Ukraine and left for Europe to study before the start of the full-scale war, and that her mother does live abroad, but not in Russia.

Previously

In May 2023, Olena Mudra reported doxxing and pressure related to her reporting. The pressure began following her article about staff changes at the State Environmental Inspection in Zakarpattia oblast, which was published in Zakarpattia Online on March 6 under the headline "Former head of the Economy Protection Office and heir to an illegal construction project in Bukovel, Mykhailo Bank, is now head of SEI Zakarpattia."

The police responded to Olena's statement by opening a case under Part 2 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Obstruction of legal reporting”).

In September 2023, unknown persons tried to access the Telegram profile of Olena Mudra, an investigator journalist from Zakarpattia, twice. She believes this has to do with her reporting.