Zaporizhzhia media outlet "Verzhe" reported academician’s threats over articles about city’s new emblem’s draft design

The editor-in-chief of Zaporizhzhia online media outlet “Verzhe” Mykola Kolodiazhny believes that the journalists of his media outlet were threatened in a Facebook post by a Zaporizhzhia-based academician, ex-military Andriy Avdeyenko, reports Telekrytyka.

The conflict between Verzhe and Avdeyenko began after Avdeyenko spared no effort, including threats to his critics, to promote his own draft of the design for the emblem of Zaporizhzhia that he claimed was made by a famous local artist, Anatoliy Haidamaka. The local community, historians and artists consider this draft a poor joke, and Haidamaka himself said in an interview to Verzhe that he had nothing to do with the design and that it was authored by Avdeyenko. Verzhe has been covering this story.

After Haidamaka’s interview, Avdeyenko published a Facebook post claiming that the journalists were pestering Haidamaka and promised to break their fingers for this. Later, he edited the threat out of his post.