Anastasia Shybiko, CEO of Vilne Radio (formerly based in Bakhmut, Donetsk oblast), received emails claiming that bombs had been planted in the news outlet’s office and staff’s homes, she reported to Valentyna Troyan, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Luhansk oblast.
Anastasia Shybiko said that the most recent “bomb” letter her team received had arrived on 1 February. All of them arrived between 30 January 30 and 1 February.
“We found these letters on our main corporate inbox and in our personal inboxes. This time, journalist Olena Rusinova and me received the letters to our personal emails,” Vilne Radio CEO said.
Anastasia added that her team did not take such letters seriously.
“First of all, all our work is done in remote. Since our relocation from Bakhmut we don’t have the office which has been the subject of so many ‘bomb threats’. Second, these emails all follow the same set of clichés, they are all the same in content and structure. Third, this is a mass mailing campaign, and the other recipients’ addresses are not even hidden,” she said, adding that these were the reasons why her team had not contacted the police regarding this issue and saw no point in doing so.
“This is a run-of-the-mill, amateurish, and very cheap ‘campaign’ that aims to intimidate us or has some other purpose. But so far it has just been funny,” the journalist said.