Armed man threatens MykVisti journalists in Mykolaiv

Journalists with the Mykolaiv-based media outlet MykVisti were threatened by a man armed with a gun while filming the progress of historic building renovations in a Mykolaiv neighborhood on May 26, reports Kateryna Sereda, the Institute of Mass Information representative in Mykolaiv oblast, who witnessed the incident first hand.

She says that she and her colleague went to check the progress of construction work in a historic building in central Mykolaiv. A man shouted at them them from the fifth floor of a neighboring building and threatened them.

The police had a conversation with the man and took down his explanation. Photo by Kateryna Sereda

“We explained to the man that we were there as journalists, we were not filming him. To which he started shouting at us, forbidding us to film and threatening us. He vanished for a few seconds, then reappeared and started waving something that looked like a gun in our direction, letting us know that he was ready to shoot if we did not leave,” says Kateryna Sereda.

The journalists called the police, who recorded their appeal. The man did have an air gun on him. The police had a conversation with him and took down his explanation. He explained that believes reporters to be sabotage agents helping Russian troops aim their strikes by taking photographs of buildings.

The journalists decided not to file a crime statement.