In its Tuesday statement, Ukraine’s Union of journalists condemned violent and abusive act against the journalist of ‘Bukvy’ news outlet calling it  ‘blatant pressure on the media worker aiming to scare him and disrupt his professional work’.

Raising its concerns over actions of far-right organizations that ‘directly violate human rights and freedom of speech’, the Union secretary Lina Kusch called on National Police ‘for detailed and unbiased investigation of the incident.

Ukraine’s Union of journalists joined the chorus of politicians, human rights activists who condemned the attack on Oleskandr Kuzelnyi. The reporter was assaulted by far-right activists outside the Kyiv court on July 21 when he was covering the court hearing of Oleksiy Bolenkov, the activist from Belarus now facing deportation to Minsk.

The investigation by Bukvy identified two alleged assailants – far-right “Nationalny Suprotyv’ leader Oleksiy Svynarenko and Russian ex-convict and member of Martzynkevich neo-Nazi group Mykhailo (Mykhail) Shalankevich.

 

The incident exposed the growing presence of Russian far-right extremists in Ukraine and showed how they engage  Ukrainian youths with their ‘activities’.

You can learn more about the incident here.