On 8 August 2022, journalists at Chetverta Vlada, a Ukrainian online investigative media, said authorities in Rivne repeatedly refused information requests by the media’s journalists citing martial law in Ukraine. According to the journalists, these refusals were unfounded and served as an excuse to not provide documents related to salaries and service apartments of civil servants in Rivne region. A media lawyer at IMI, a Kyiv-based media NGO, said that Ukrainian state institutions cannot dismiss information requests by journalists simply due to martial law, and must explain how the war prevents them from supplying information. Lyudmyla Opryshko added that state institutions near the frontline in Eastern Ukraine have objective difficulties with such requests, suggesting that this is unlikely to be the case in Rivne, a city in Western Ukraine.
UPDATE: On 1 December, a court in Rivne obliged local police forces to investigate authorities’ refusal to provide information, which police had itself earlier refused to do.