Zaporizhzhia communal channel "MTM" reports pressure from a city council official; the official denies it

The Zaporizhia communal channel "MTM" reports pressure and interference in their editorial policy by Yevhen Kovalenko, the chief of internal policy, press and information at the Zaporizhia City Council. The official denied the allegations and claimed corruption on the part of the channel's director, Iryna Poliyektova.

The channel reported the pressure to the Institute of Mass Information in a letter signed by the acting head of the communal company "MTM", Svitlana Zaychenko. She substitutes for Iryna Poliyektova, who has been suspended.

In the letter, the channel claims that Kovalenko "started his attempts to build a shadow management at MTM" immediately after his appointment in May 2023.

The channel's allegations regarding the City Council official

The channel accuses Kovalenko of actions such as:

• "requiring third-party intervention in the editing of the informational content prepared for being aired on the channel";
• "unlawful interference in news reports of high public interest in time of martial law."

The letter also mentions targeted pressure on the MTM director Iryna Poliyektova, such as:

• "refusing to approve the director's business trip to Kyiv to receive a media award for the company";
• "searching for arbitrary reasons to deprive the company director of bonuses for non-existent violations and mailing a written bonus refusal to the company".

The channel accuses the City Council official of "creating a climate and a model of relations between the internal politics, press and information department of the City Council and the company that are similar to administrative terror, manual control and strict censorship"; "a complete lack of effective support and constructive coordination of joint action to develop the only broadcaster in the city."

The channel remarks that they publicly reported on the pressure by Yevhen Kovalenko on April 12, 2024, and appealed to the law enforcement and supervisory authorities on this matter.

MTM director Iryna Poliyektova went on air with a statement on pressure, screenshot from the MTM channel taken by IMI

The letter says that later, on April 15, Iryna Poliyektova was suspended as head of MTM due to an official investigation being ordered. On April 18, the second order on official investigation was approved, based on Yevhen Kovalenko's application on the excess of authority and non-compliance with the law committed by Iryna Poliyektova.

The TV channel believes that both investigations were opened through corrupt means.

"It is obvious that both investigations are corrupt, unlawful, grossly violate the rights of a communal media outlet – the TV channel "MTM" – and testify to another instance of total and illegal administrative pressure by the body managing the company's property (Yevhen Kovalenko) on the normal operation of the only media actor in  Zaporizhzhia city (the telecaster)," the letter says.

The official's comment regarding the allegations

Yevhen Kovalenko, the chief of Internal Policy, Press and Information at the Zaporizhia City Council, has denied the censorship allegations, claimed that the channel's director Iryna Poliyektova has broken the law, and reported that two official probes into alleged corruption and abuse of office by her have been opened.

In the comment to IMI's regional representative, Yevhen Kovalenko noted that the conflict was not about censorship or influence on the channel's editorial policy, but about subordination and violations by the communal company's director.

"There is both a political and an ethical aspect to this. MTM is a communal company and Zaporizhzhia City Council is its owner. The director of a communal company is appointed under a contract signed by the Mayor. The body managing the property of this company is the internal policy department, which I am in charge of. What does it mean? We define all obligations under the contract. However, from the day of Iryna Poliyektova's appointment, there have been subordination issues. Some political contexts began to appear and interaction was not smooth. For instance, a year ago, the channel's management started claiming interference in the MTM editorial policy. However, the channel's editorial board, which includes some City Council deputies, convened on this issue and found no pressure. Iryna Yuriyivna was present at this meeting, too, and she agreed with the findings," the official said.

Yevhen Kovalenko, the chief of Internal Policy, Press and Information at the Zaporizhia City Council. Photo by Yevhen Kovalenko on Facebook

He also noted that he received no answers to his questions regarding the channel's administrative and financial activities.

"As the manager, I ask questions, but receive no answers from my official subordinate. The questions concerned the channel's finances, among other things: the director did not even attend the meetings discussing this. Essentially, it was me pushing for funding for the channel," Yevhen Kovalenko said.

He also said that in late November 2023, the City Council received documents from the Department of Strategic Investigations asking for paperwork related to the MTM TV channel.

"We provided some of the documents and requested some from the TV channel. However, our letter was ignored. We instructed them to provide these documents to us. That letter was also ignored by the channel's management. Then we received a letter from the Department of Strategic Investigations, saying that they had 10 cases opened against the MTM director Iryna Poliyektova over administrative offenses related to corruption," Kovalenko said.

He said that the MTM director was currently under two official investigations. One probe is related to the application by the Department of Strategic Investigations, and the second on due as to do with abuse of office, when Iryna Poliyektova went on air with a statement about an "alarming situation around the MTM channel."

The suspended MTM director

Iryna Poliyektova was appointed director of the company "MTM" in late November 2021. Before that, she had never worked in the media, calling herself an HR consultant, and was affiliated with the NGO "Ukrainian Business Women in Zaporizhzhia Oblast". She is currently a candidate for a member of Ukraine's National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting, nominated by the NGO "Territory of Original Projects Organization".

On March 7, 2024, the Ordzhonikidze District Court of Zaporizhzhia found Iryna Poliyektova guilty of failing to report a conflict of interest and passing a decision related to such a conflict, reported the Zaporizhia Investigation Center (ZIC).

The decision in question was that it in January 2022, two months after being appointed director of the TV channel, Poliyektova hired her daughter Sofya as a promotion department information support expert.

Right after that, according to the investigation, Poliyektova signed two more orders, giving her daughter a bonus "for high achievements" amounting to 50% of the daughter's salary and an additional reward for proactive work, amounting to 12% of the salary. Sofya worked in the company for two months and resigned in late March 2022.

Director Poliyektova has filed an appeal against this decision to the Zaporizhzhia Court of Appeal.

Official investigations should be completed in mid-June. The employer will make further decisions regarding the channel director after that, and after hearing the ruling by the Zaporizhzhia Court of Appeal.

Yevhen Kovalenko also reported that after the ZIC released their material mentioning the conflict between him and the TV channel, and after MTM's claims about pressure, he asked for his control over MTM to be suspended due to a possible conflict of interests.

What TV channels speak in Zaporizhzhia

Two TV channels currently speak in Zaporizhia: the communal TV channel MTM, which is financed from the city budget and owned by the Zaporizhia City Council, and Suspilne Zaporizhia.

The TV channel once known as TV-5, which used to be 100% owned by the oligarch Rinat Akhmetov, rebranded to "Edition No. 5" and now speaks on YouTube. The TV channel "Alex" shut down in February 2023 after its owner, Vyacheslav Bohuslayev, was charged with treason.