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Ukrainian Secret Service building in Kiev (2019)

Photo: Palinchak Mykhailo / Pond5 Images / IMAGO

A senior representative of the Ukrainian secret service SBU has been fired for spying on investigative journalists. As reported from SBU circles on Monday, the head of the secret service's state security department, Roman Semchenko, was fired. The decision was made by the management of the secret service and approved by President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Recently, several cases of surveillance of Ukrainian investigative journalists became public. The case of the Bihus.info platform, which is known for corruption revelations, caused a particular stir. The medium regularly publishes reports about government employees and wealthy private individuals. In mid-January, their journalists found out that they had been secretly filmed and bugged over a long period of time. Other journalists were also spied on or put under pressure.

The SBU secret service said on Monday that “appropriate personnel decisions” had been made due to the monitoring of Bihus.info. At the same time, the authority defended its actions. Some employees of the disclosure platform were “customers of drug dealers.” Bihus.info said in January that some of its employees had consumed "illegal substances" on New Year's Eve.

"Such surveillance must be assessed legally, regardless of whether a possible violation of the law on the trafficking of narcotics was made public in the secretly filmed material or not," the SBU had previously explained. The work of independent and professional media is an important prerequisite for Ukraine's development into a democratic state.

»Consuming banned substances (even outside of working hours) is a disgrace. And you should take responsibility for that," said a statement from Bihus.info published on Facebook, in which the recordings were considered genuine. "But the pressure and persecution of us and other investigative (journalists) is a much bigger scandal." The video makes it clear that the Bihus.info employees were monitored for a year.

aka/AFP/Reuters