On 8 July 2024, a passerby in Kherson approached and verbally assaulted journalist Olena Hnitetska, who works for local online outlet Most, while she was filming a report about a recent Russian missile attack in the city.
“I was filming the main building of Kherson State University, which was damaged by Russian shelling, when a man on a bicycle came up to me swearing,” Hnitetska told the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Ukrainian press freedom group. “[He] started threatening me and running towards me, demanding that I remove the camera. I ran away from him and asked another man who was walking by to call the police. This scared the attacker, and he ran away.”
According to the journalist, the man could have been angered by the fact that he would be seen in the video she was filming. However, she claimed, he would appear far away on the video and it would be difficult to identify him. In addition, Hnitetska said, the team at MOST “always removes videos and photos of people who are against being filmed in public places.”
Hnitetska said that at the time of the event, she was wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet with PRESS patches. The journalist wrote a statement on the event to the police, who later opened an investigation for obstruction of legal journalistic activities, which is a criminal offence in Ukraine. Police also said they requested that the man come to a police station to testify.