Freedom of Speech Barometer for June 2025
The Institute of Mass Information experts recorded 7 freedom of speech violations in Ukraine in June, according to the IMI’s monthly monitoring study “Freedom of Speech Barometer”.
In June, the IMI recorded two crimes against the media and journalists that were committed by Russia. These included an assassination attempt against a journalist and a newspaper going out of print due to the war.
One media professional died in June:
- Vladyslav Voloboyev, drafted journalist with the Kryvyi Rih city newspaper Pulse. Died in a Russian strike on a military training ground on June 1. He was only five weeks into his training at the moment of his death. He worked with Pulse for five years.
Freedom of speech in Ukraine in June 2025
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported thwarting an attempt on the life of media personality Dmytro Gordon by Russia’s FSB, which set a reward of 400 thousand US dollars for the crime. According to the SBU, the mission was entrusted to an undercover agent: a Russian citizen hailing from the North Caucasus who was to create agent groups in Kyiv. The persons of interest stalked Gordon, having disguised their cars as taxis and equipped them with hidden video recorders. "As per the FSB's plan, the assassin was supposed to attack the target with a firearm and quickly flee the scene, get rid of the weapon, and 'lay low.' The resident agent was looking to purchase a motorcycle for this purpose," the SBU reported.
All members of the group and the resident agent were detained while preparing for the assassination attempt. They were notified of suspicion under Part 1 of Article 258 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Acts of terrorism”). They are in custody, facing up to 10 years in prison with confiscation of property.
The Chernivtsi oblast print weekly Vyzhnytski Obriyi temporarily went out of print. The newspaper’s director Maryna Kysylytsia says the print issues of the newspaper had to be suspended due to financial difficulties caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The IMI also recorded five freedom of speech violations unrelated to Russia’s war on Ukraine. These included obstruction of reporting, restricting access to public information, as well as indirect and legal pressure.
Bihus.Info reported pressure by MP Oleksiy Honcharenko. The media outlet has appealed to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech and to the Ethics Committee over the official’s statements and actions. Following the release of a Bihus.Info investigation into European Solidarity MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, the official reached out to the project's team demanding answers regarding the media outlet's budget, its donors, and the salaries of its employees. Honcharenko accused the media outlet of using European funding to produce stories that violate journalism standards, involve surveillance of other individuals, etc. In the investigation “What’s Wrong with Honcharenko: Money from a Fugitive Billionaire, Switching Sides, and Election Preparation”, Bihus.Info reported on Oleksiy Honcharenko’s vote against the extension of martial law, the funding of the “Honcharenko Centers,” and Honcharenko’s political ambition.
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) turned down Radio Liberty’s request for information on the border crossing by lawyer, former the crossing of the Ukrainian border by Andriy Portnov, lawyer and former deputy head of the Viktor Yanukovych administration, before his murder in May 2025. The SBGS said that the requested information was classified and concerned the private life of the person in question.
Zakarpattia-based investigative journalist Olena Mudra reported being targeted by a smear campaign in the media. Several disreputable media outlets published a deceptive article with false information about her sources of income (alleging she works for Russia and Russian money) and her family. Olena believes this campaign was triggered by her investigations into the work of LLC Wind Parks Ukraine in Zakarpattia oblast. She has filed a police statement on obstruction of her lawful reporting and violation of her privacy.
Read the full monitoring study below:
RUSSIA'S CRIMES
Assassination attempt — 1
1. SBU reports thwarting assassination attempt on media personality Dmytro Gordon in Kyiv
23.06.2025 The SBU's counterintelligence department has detained four groups of Russia's FSB operatives who were plotting a second assassination attempt targeting Ukrainian media personality Dmytro Gordon, the SBU reported in a Facebook post.
According to the investigators, the Russian special service set a reward of 400 thousand US dollars for the crime.
“The occupiers entrusted the preparation of the famous journalist's assassination to an agent deep undercover in Kyiv. The agent turned out to be a Russian citizen aged 36, hailing from the North Caucasus, whom the FSB 'routed' to Ukraine even before the full-scale invasion as a political asylum seeker from Russia,” the SBU reported.
To cover up, the FSB pushed fabricated criminal charges against the agent and put him on the wanted list in order to make him look like an “opposition figure”.
“After the start of the full-scale war, the person of interest received a task from his curator: to create reconnaissance and combat groups in Kyiv consisting of North Caucasus natives,” the SBU reported.
The attackers purchased several cars, disguised them as taxis and equipped them with hidden video recorders. The drivers of these cars stalked Dmytro Gordon, tracking his daily routine, whereabouts, and the presence of security guards.
"As per the FSB's plan, the assassin was supposed to attack the target with a firearm and quickly flee the scene, get rid of the weapon, and 'lay low.' The resident agent was looking to purchase a motorcycle for this purpose," the SBU reported.
The special service forestalled the operation: all members of the group and the resident agent were detained while preparting for the assassination attempt.
“While documenting the suspects' reconnaissance activities, the SBU learned that they had received additional missions to help the Russian troops aim their strikes and assassinate foreigners fighting for Ukraine. One of those was a Russian citizen who is now fighting for our country as part of the RVC,” the department said.
The SBU has notified the detainees of suspicion under Part 1 of Article 258 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Acts of terrorism”). They are in custody, facing up to 10 years in prison with confiscation of property.
In September 2024, four agents of Russia's FSB, coordinated by an ex-deputy of the outlawed "Party of Regions", were detained in Kyiv while preparing sabotage operations and collecting data on Ukraine's public figures, including the Ukrainian media personality Dmytro Gordon, for assassination purpose.
Media outlets shutting down due to Russia's war in Ukraine — 1
1. 80 year old Bukovyna newspaper goes out of print due to financial difficulties
26.06.2025 The Chernivtsi oblast print weekly Vyzhnytski Obriyi is temporarily going out of print, reports Maryna Kysylytsia, the PE Vyzhnytski Obriyi Media Center director, in a comment to Alyona Chorna, the regional representative of the Institute of Mass Information.
Maryna Kysylytsia says that the newspaper released their last issue for the year today, June 26. The editorial office did not offer subscriptions for the second half of the year and has fulfilled its obligations to subscribers.
“The newspaper's printed version has been suspended due to financial difficulties caused by the ineffective work of Ukrposhta and a significant drop in the advertising market. Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, we have had much fewer ad placement commissions. Effectively, we are left with 10% of advertisers. The money that we received under agreements on covering the Vyzhnytskyi City Council's work and other communities in the district did not even cover printing alone. And we also need it for salaries, taxes. We turned to other communities for support, but we didn’t get it,” said Maryna Kysylytsia.
She clarified that the company itself is not being closed down. They are just suspending the printed version of the newspaper.
“I wrote a resignation letter because I was experiencing professional burn-out, recently it was only me and the digital typesetter working. Now my colleagues, the founders of the newspaper, have announced a job opening for a director and editor. The team is looking for ways to revive the newspaper,” said Maryna Kysylytsia.
She noted that in 2024 the company wrote grant applications, traveled to Kyiv and, finally, got admitted into a project.
“It was a great hope and a chance for Vyzhnytski Obriyi to survive. But with the termination of USAID, we never received the money for the newspaper's development. I hope that there will be other opportunities and my colleagues will soon be able to resume publication of the newspaper,” adds the media outlet's director.
The NCTRB representative in Chernivtsi oblast, Lyubov Nechyporuk, said in a comment to the IMI representative that Vyzhnytski Obriyi had been in print for 80 consecutive years. Its pages contain the history of the Vyzhnytsia district, the stories of its people, issues that concern the community and the search for solutions to them.
“The situation in the print media industry remains difficult. Many traditional regional newspapers are on the verge of survival due to financial difficulties, a drop in subscriptions, and increased printing and logistics costs. In the first half of this year, two Bukovyna-based media outlets, Khotynski Visti and Ridne Slovo, which had been published in the Khotyn and Kelmentsi districts for many years on end, did not announce a new round of subscriptions,” said Lyubov Nechyporuk.
She added that Khotynski Visti and Ridne Slovo had submitted applications to the NCTRB to change the issue frequency: the register indicates that these newspapers will be published once a year going forward.
As IMI reported, the National Council for Television and Radio Broadcasting registered four online media outlets created by Bukovyna Football Club LLC in Chernivtsi oblast.
THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH SITUATION IN UKRAINE FOR WHICH UKRAINIAN CITIZENS ARE RESPONSIBLE
PHYSICAL AGGRESSION
Obstruction of legal reporting — 1
1. Man notified of suspicion for attacking journalist in Odesa court
24.06.2025 Odesa police notified a man of suspicion of obstruction of legal reporting for demanding that a journalist stop filming in the courtroom and hitting his camera in an attempt to damage it and disrupt the filming, as reported on the website of the Odesa Oblast National Police HQ.
The incident occurred in March in the Prymorskyi District Court of Odesa city, which was choosing a measure of restraint for an Odesa oblast official suspected of extortion in an open hearing.
According to the investigation, when the judge announced a break in the hearing, the participants walked out into the hallway, where a conflict occurred between a journalist with a regional online media outlet, aged 53, and a man previously unknown to him.
“The latter approached the journalist, who was performing an editorial assignment, demanded that he stop filming, and then hit his video camera, trying to damage it and interrupt the recording. The man deliberately tried to prevent the journalist from filming despite the latter wearing a badge indicating his affiliation with a media outlet and his equipment having the media outlet’s logo,” the police say.
The 41-year-old man, who had ties with the defendant in the case, was notified of suspicion under Part 1 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (obstruction of legal reporting).
According to the law, the maximum penalty for intentionally obstructing a journalist’s legal reporting is three years of restriction of liberty. The investigation is underway.
CENSORSHIP, TOPIC GUIDELINES, ACCESS TO INFORMATION
Access to information for journalists — 1
1. Ukraine's border guard service withholds data on Potrnov's border crossing from Radio Liberty
16.06.2025 The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGS) turned down Radio Liberty’s request for information on the border crossing by lawyer, former the crossing of the Ukrainian border by Andriy Portnov, lawyer and former deputy head of the Viktor Yanukovych administration, before his murder in May 2025, reports Radio Liberty.
The SBGS said that the requested information was classified and concerned the private life of the person in question. Such information is protected from improper disclosure by the Constitution of Ukraine, the laws of Ukraine “On Information”, “On the Protection of Personal Data”.
“Therefore it can only be disclosed with the consent of the person or in other cases outlined in the law… In order for officials at the Special Information Processing HQ to comply with the requirements of current legislation when disclosing confidential information containing personal data, we inform you that the Special Information Processing HQ has no legal grounds to provide the requested information,” the response states.
According to journalists with the RFE/RL project "Schemes", Andriy Portnov left Ukraine on June 3, 2022. Spanish police are investigating reports that he had briefly visited Ukraine in May 2025, before his murder.
As the IMI reported, Andriy Portnov, the former deputy head of the Viktor Yanukovych administration, was shot dead near the elite American School of Madrid in Pozuelo de Alarcon (Spain) on the morning of May 21, 2025.
It was announced on May 23 that Portnov was to be buried in Kyiv.
As reported by Ukrainian Pravda, a few days before his murder, Portnov visited Ukraine, where he met with Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Oleh Tatarov and Director of the State Bureau of Investigation Oleksiy Sukhachov.
The National Police of Ukraine also opened proceedings into Andriy Portnov’s murder in Madrid; the pre-trial investigation is being managed by the Prosecutor General's Office.
INDIRECT PRESSURE
Political pressure — 1
1. Bihus.Info reports pressure by Honcharenko, appeals to VRU, NACP
13.06.2025 The Bihus.Info team has appealed to the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech and to the Ethics Committee over the statements and actions by MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, which it views as overt pressure on the media outlet and abuse of office, Bihus.Info reported in a Facebook post on June 13.
“The story with our ‘head teacher’ Honcharenko is not just a reaction from a person featured in our investigation. This is overt pressure on a media outlet and abuse of office. Contacting our donors or advertisers because an MP did not like the story is not ‘school learning’, but an open and brazen attempt to obstruct our journalistic work,” the editorial team stated.
The journalists also filed a statement with the National Agency for Corruption Prevention (NACP) regarding the conflict of interest.
“Because there is a bit of a difference between writing queries to our advertisers and donors as a citizen of Ukraine and as an MP,” the team noted.
On June 13, Oleksiy Honcharenko reported on Telegram that he had received a response from the EU Anti-Corruption Initiative in Ukraine (EUACI) regarding the funds allocated to support the Bihus.Info project. “Denys uses European money to produce stories that violate journalism standards, use obscene language to refer to elected officials, involve surveillance (!) of other individuals, and all this is at the expense of our friends from Europe. I believe that they were simply unaware what they were giving money for. We will show them,” wrote Honcharenko.
As previously reported, following the release of a Bihus.Info investigation into European Solidarity MP Oleksiy Honcharenko, the official reached out to the project's team demanding answers regarding the media outlet's budget, its donors, and the salaries of its employees.
On May 12, 2025, Bihus.Info released the investigation “What’s Wrong with Honcharenko: Money from a Fugitive Billionaire, Switching Sides, and Election Preparation”. In it, journalist Svitlana Stetsenko reports on Oleksiy Honcharenko’s vote against the extension of martial law, the funding of the “Honcharenko Centers,” and Honcharenko’s political ambition.
On June 5, the Bihus.Info founder Denys Bihus said he considered Oleksiy Honcharenko’s query into the project’s funding and staff to be an attempt to pressure the independent media outlet and his personal blog.
Other instances of indirect pressure — 1
1. Zakarpattia journalist Olena Mudra reports smear campaign against her
Zakarpattia-based investigator journalist Olena Mudra says she is being targeted by a smear campaign in the media. She believes the campaign was triggered by her reporting, Olena tells the Institute of Mass Information.
She said that several disreputable media outlets published a deceptive article with false information about her sources of income (alleging she works for Russia and Russian money) and her family.
Namely, the article was published by From-UA on June 2 and Bahnet on June 7. It was then reprinted from From-UA by several other media outlets, including Znayu.Ua, Bahnet, Vlasti.Net, Informator, and Akcenty.
Besides Olena, the campaign targets other environmentalists such as Oksana Stanukevych-Volosyanchuk of the NGO Ecosfera, activist Natalia Vyshnevska, and lawyer Natalia Maistrenko.
The article alleges that the activists are being “generously funded by Russian agencies” and Medvedchuk’s funds, accuses them of “hampering green energy development, which threatens the monopoly of Russian energy resources” and of lobbying for the Russian energy companies Gazprom and Rosneft. The article also says that Olena Mudra and the other environmentalists are affiliated with the media outlet Zakarpattia Online and alleges that one of the media outlet's servers is located in Russia and that some IP addresses used to run the website are linked to Russia via geolocation.
The article features photos of an address to the National Security and Defense Council, the Security Service of Ukraine, and the National Police, demanding that the IP addresses associated with the media outlet be checked and the persons running the portal be identified.
For her part, Olena says she has been working with the above-mentioned environmentalists for over a year on a campaign to preserve the Carpathian highlands and oppose the construction of over two hundred windmills by LLC Wind Parks Ukraine. She is involved as a journalist and covers the campaign in Zakarpattia Online, which came under attack for being a news platform.
“This is a pre-planned, fairly large-scale campaign to discredit me as a journalist and the local environmentalist community which advocates for preserving the ecosystems of the Ukrainian Carpathian highlands, saving them from wind energy projects that can destroy them. The media outlet Zakarpattia Online, which provides the community with a platform, is also under attack. I am one of the targets because I report on the conservation campaign as part of my work in journalism,” said Olena Mudra.
Olena denies the allegations, saying that the community is not against developing wind energy, including in the Carpathians.
“The issue lies with the locations chosen for these projects – the highlands covered by international environmental obligations, surrounded by ancient forests and Natural Reserve Fund objects. It is impossible to build wind farms here without violating environmental, forestry, and urban planning legislation,” the journalist said.
Regarding the address to law enforcement agencies, Olena Mudra suggests that it is a way to "legitimize" covert investigative actions against her as a journalist.
"The rumors originated on websites featured in various anti-rankings: From-Ua and Bahnet, which publish manipulative and unreliable news. They, in turn, cite the website Novyny Zakarpattia, which in late May was the first to spread fake news about a 'ban' on the party Hungarians of Zakarpattia, used by Orban's government to provoke an international scandal. Who benefits from smearing me and the environmentalist community? Even though neither the masterminds nor the executors of the campaign mention their names, LLC Wind Parks Ukraine will benefit from this. Companies of this business group have by now illegally begun to install the foundations for wind turbines for a wind power plant in the Rivna valley (Runa, as it is called in the local dialect), without an EIA (environmental impact assessment, – Ed.), the procedure for obtaining which was suspended due to an ongoing trial,” the journalist noted.
She added that Wind Parks Ukraine has filed two defamation lawsuits against her with the Vynohradiv District Court (cases No. 299/2199/25 and 299/2575/25, with demands for damages of UAH 50,000 each). The company believes that the information that it had started wind turbine construction and installation work before receiving a conclusion of the environmental impact assessment is untrue and the company is not in violation of any laws.
Olena Mudra also denied the allegations regarding Russian financing.
“I have been writing investigations on environmental topics since 2017. Since I am a regional journalist, my focus is on environment law violations and eco-crimes in the Zakarpattia region. Working for grant money, I have never received support from Hungary or from private foundations of politicians or oligarchs from any country,” she said.
Olena added that her son graduated from a military lyceum in Ukraine and left for Europe to study before the start of the full-scale war, and that her mother does live abroad, but not in Russia.
LEGAL PRESSURE
Other instances of legal pressure — 1
1. Oksana Moroz says blogger Bohdana Honcharuk is threatening to sue her over her scam investigation
27.06.2025 Ukrainian blogger Bohdana Honcharuk is threatening to sue Oksana Moroz, the founder of the educational project "How Not to Turn Braindead", over two videos about her activities such as selling “money attracting” meditations to people on maternity leave. Oksana Moroz reported this in a Facebook post on June 27.
Moroz says that Honcharuk is demanding the videos be taken down, otherwise she will sue, because she believes that these videos are “defamatory” and feature copyrighted clips and photos shared without her consent.
However, Oksana Moroz explains that the videos were based on open data, mainly sourced from Honcharuk's own Instagram profile.
She added that the situation was fascinating because Honcharuk "has said enough to defame herself" and now demands the takedown of already collected and systematized information.
Moroz says that there is an obvious response to the lawsuit threats: to go to court and prove that “there is nothing wrong with our videos.” However, she settled on a less obvious solution, saying that she would take down the videos and spend “the time and energy saved in litigation on developing regulations that will prevent sham gurus from scamming Ukrainians out of their money".
“It is high time that we figured out whether they pay taxes for the millions of dollars they claim to have earned in their Instagram stories, what their contracts with mentees say and whether the victims can exercise their rights for poor-quality services”, Oksana said.
Moroz added that even though in a democracy with guaranteed freedom of speech everyone is entitled to doing whatever they deem necessary, this does not cancel the necessity of transparent regulations for controlling user rights, especially in wartime, when “many want a magic pill”.
“I’m not worried about the videos: many bloggers have already released their own investigations into Honcharuk and her ‘business’ over the past few months,” she added, noting that the systematized information would remain available to the public.
Oksana Moroz asked those willing to join the effort of cleaning up the infospace.
Oksana Moroz produced a total of two videos related to Bohdana Honcharuk’s activities:
- the first one uses Honcharuk as an example to show how the “salesmen” business works and how Ukrainian “easy money gurus” learn from Russian colleagues and copy their approaches, all while parroting Russian propaganda;
- the second one is an interview with online scam researcher Irene Adler, who has investigated Bohdana Honcharuk’s activities.
In a comment to the Institute of Mass Information’s Valentyna Troyan, Oksana Moroz said that this was the first time that she had encountered such allegations.
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