On 30 October 2023, Russian occupying authorities communicated the detention of Heorhii Levchenko, the editor of RIA Melitopol, a popular Telegram channel which published news about events in Melitopol, a city in southern Ukraine under Russian occupation since March 2022. Levchenko and several other inhabitants of Melitopol have now been accused of appeals to terrorism, the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) reported.

Aside from Levchenko, several other inhabitants of Melitopol were accused of publishing news on Levchenko’s Telegram channel. These were: Oleksandr Malyshev, Maksym Rupchov, Yana Suvorova, Mark Kaliush and Kostiantyn Zynovkin.

According to NUJU, Russian occupying forces saw the Telegram channel as a “media hostile towards them”, detaining Levchenko and several other individuals whose names remain unknown.

At the end of August, Ukrainian media had already reported that the Telegram channel run by Levchenko had been hacked by Russian occupying forces. However, for the next two months, no information was available about the journalist’s whereabouts, or the charges formulated against him.

UPDATE: On 3 May 2024, local outlet RIA Pivden revealed the name of another inhabitant of Melitopol who was arrested by occupying Russian authorities in August 2023 on charges of publishing for the RIA Melitopol Telegram channel. The inhabitant in question was identified as Vladyslav Hershon. No additional information as to his identity or activities was provided.