On 16 October 2023, Ukrainian political strategist and blogger Volodymyr Petrov took part in a livestreamed conversation broadcast by Youtube channel ISLND TV, during which he threatened to “punish” Natalia Lyhachova, the editor-in-chief of Detector Media, a Ukrainian media rights defence group.
In the video, which featured Petrov speaking with Serhiy Ivanov, the co-host of the show, the political strategist commented on Ukrainian public figures who left Kyiv in the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Petrov said that he had “introduced a rule”, according to which he would continue to speak to those who remained in the Ukrainian capital at the time, adding that any public figure who had not “would be punished”.
In his comments, Petrov specifically mentioned Lyhachova’s last name, saying that she “would be punished” by him. In response, co-host Ivanov suggested to Petrov that this should be done “in accordance with the law”. The blogger, however, replied that he would “himself decide how she [would] be punished”. Petrov mentioned Lyhachova’s name several times, singling her out as the main target of his criticism and threats. He also referred to Taras Chornovol, a former pro-Russian member of the Ukrainian parliament, who was the target of an incident earlier this year in Kyiv, in the course of which Ukrainian activists had thrown him into a dumpster: Petrov said that the people he referred to in his criticism should remember this incident in case they “wanted to imagine” what he meant by “punishing” them.
According to Detector Media, as well as the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Ukrainian press freedom group, Petrov’s threats could have been a response to earlier comments by Lyhachova, in which she disapproved of the fact that ISLND TV had been registered as a media outlet by Ukrainian authorities, under the country’s new media law, which came into force earlier this year. Lyhachova said Petrov and other people taking part in the Youtube channel’s activities were “dark political strategists, working for the [Ukrainian] President’s Office, who should have no place in [Ukraine’s national united news] marathon, nor on Youtube, nor anywhere else”.
Lyhachova also accused Petrov of having organized groups of young men tasked with physically assaulting pro-democracy and pro-EU demonstrators, who were unoficially hired by authorities under Ukraine’s former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and are known in Ukraine as “titushki”.
According to Danylo Popkov, a lawyer working for the Ukrainian human rights defence center Zmina, Petrov’s words were a violation of Ukrainian law and could be investigated under the criminal code’s article for “threats or violence towards a journalist”. Detector Media and Lyhachova, however, did not specify whether they had filed a complaint linked to the incident.