Bihus.Info suspects reward for spying on journalists; SBU denies giving orders – VIDEO 6 72041
This is stated in the story of Bihus.Info, War Ukraine-Russia News Hub reports.
As noted in the story, according to the information of colleagues, in January, after the surveillance operation on Bihus.Info employees, but before the information about this operation became public, Roman Semenchenko, then head of the Department of National State Protection, and Igor Kravchenko, an employee of the SBU, were submitted for a reward Order of Daniil Halytskyi.
The story says that Bihus.Info submitted a request for this information, but there is no reason to doubt its veracity.
The Order of Daniil Halytskyi is awarded by presidential decree for “significant personal contribution to the development of Ukraine, conscientious and impeccable service to the Ukrainian people.”
Bihus.Info also reports that after the publication of the investigation into the SBU’s involvement in spying on journalists, employees of the special service were banned from wearing branded clothes, expensive watches and luxury cars. The corresponding newsletter, according to the project, appeared in internal SBU chats and reached journalists.
“Attention managers! Please exclude the use of branded clothing, expensive watches, elite cars, etc. by operative staff during service activities (during working hours). Exclusively tactical clothing! The execution of the instructions is under the personal responsibility of the supervisors of the subdivision… Give the staff about it is not allowed to wear branded clothes, drive expensive cars, etc. (including especially on weekends), since Bygus will be actively working. No exceptions! Tactical uniforms, etc., – quotes the draft message from internal chat rooms of the special services.
The story of Bihus.Info also states that after the publication of the investigation, “journalists of different newsrooms began to actively communicate on social networks that they are also already familiar with Igor (Kravchenko – ed.)”.
“Some – because he took them out for meetings, some – because he came to them in the editorial office. They also mentioned the fact that, according to Igor, he was entrusted with dealing with all the journalists,” the investigators said.
After the publication of the news, the press service SBU in comments UP denied the existence of an award for Semenchenko and Kravchenko.
“We inform you about the absence of the state award “Order of Daniil Halytsky” from the former head of the SBU GZNA Roman Semenchenko and Igor Kravchenko,” the SBU said.
Monitoring of Bihus.info journalists
On January 16, a video appeared online showing Bihus.Info employees allegedly using drugs at a New Year’s corporate party. The founder of the project, Denys Bygus, noted that the video shows part of the team, namely the operators. Journalists, according to him, did not use drugs.
“The team is aware of the gravity of the situation. Of course, the listening and monitoring were illegal, and the goals of the recorders are clear. But this is not an excuse because we saw on the video – namely, the use of prohibited substances by several of our colleagues,” the team noted.
Later, Byhus stated that members of the Bihus.Info team had been monitored for about a year. And the New Year’s corporate party became part of the security forces’ operation.
The SBU started proceedings on the fact of illegal wiretapping and video recording. And also seized discs with camera recordings.
Recently, Bihus.Info journalists asked for help in identifying persons who are probably involved in the surveillance of the team of investigators. It was also reported that Bihus.Info identified SBU officers who were illegally monitoring journalists: they are from the Department of National State Protection.
Later, the Rada released SBU head Malyuk for a report.
It became known that the pre-trial investigation in the case of surveillance of Bihus.info will be carried out by the State Security Bureau. After that, another case of surveillance of Bihus.Info employees was transferred to the State Security Bureau.