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 and Mark Kaliush.
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.
UPDATE: On 2 September 2025, Russian independent outlet MediaZona reported that a Russian court in occupied Melitopol had sentenced Levchenko to 16 years in prison on charges of state treason and “incitement to terrorism”. On 3 September 2025, the same outlet reported that a court in Rostov-on-Don (southern Russia) had sentenced Hershon to 15 years in prison on charges of espionage and participating in a “terrorist” group.
UPDATE: On 23 October 2025, a military court in Rostov-on-Don (southwestern Russia) sentenced Suvorova to 14 years in prison on charges of “participating in a terrorist group”, conducting a “terrorist act” and “espionage”.