Ukrainian Presidency Accused of Pressuring Top Media Outlet

Ukraine's presidency was accused this week of exerting pressure on the country's respected Ukrainska Pravda news outlet, an allegation lawmakers urged prosecutors to "verify" on Thursday.

The outlet accused President Volodymyr Zelensky's administration on Wednesday of "exerting pressure" in order to influence editorial policy. 

Freedom of the press is a sensitive issue in Ukraine, where authorities have made efforts to democratise since an authoritarian pro-Russian government was overthrown in 2014.

Ukrainska Pravda said the issue was "particularly outrageous" during Russia's invasion, "when our common struggle for both survival and democratic values is essential."

It accused the presidency of banning state officials from communicating with its journalists and of putting pressure on companies to "stop their advertising cooperation" with the outlet -- one of the most popular in Ukraine. 

Lawmaker Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, the head of a parliamentary commission for freedom of expression, asked the Prosecutor's Office and the police to "verify" the accusations. 

He said that if the allegations are true, those responsible "for putting pressure on the media must be punished". 

The Mediarukh association of Ukrainian journalists urged Zelensky on Thursday to do everything possible to "end the pressure on the media by any state official." 

Ukrainska Pravda is one of Ukraine's most-read news outlets.

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It was bought in 2021 by Czech businessman Tomas Fiala, who owns a number of assets in the country, including another influential media outlet. 

One of its founders, Georgiy Gongadze, was kidnapped in 2000 by senior police officers and found decapitated in a forest in the Kyiv region.

In 2016, veteran Russian-Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet -- a contributor to Ukrainska Pravda -- was killed when a bomb exploded in his car in the centre of Kyiv.