The director of The Kyiv Independent complained about harassment. “Schemes” found out that an SBU officer came to her house

An unknown man came to the house of The Kyiv Independentʼs executive director Daryna Shevchenko on September 29 and asked neighbors about her. Journalists from the “Schemes" project identified him — they say he is an employee of SBU.

The Kyiv Independentʼs editor-in-chief Olha Rudenko spoke about the incident on September 30.

She published photos of a man who, according to her, came to Shevchenkoʼs house and collected information about her: he asked neighbours, showed her photos, and took photos of the entrance door and the common door on the floor.

“This guy was brought to the house by employees of the local housing office. The employees say that he showed an ID, but they won’t admit which one. They are obviously scared. The police will question them further. Today, Daryna wrote a statement about harassment. We are waiting for the police to take action and find out what happened,” Rudenko said.

The very next day, the journalists of "Scheme" identified this man — his name is Oleksandr, he is 24 years old, and in the services for checking the license plates he is signed as "SBU Oleksandr". The special service confirmed to "Schemes" that the man works for the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), but they claim that he came to the specified address on another matter, which is not related to the journalist.

"Currently, SBU is investigating the illegal activities of one of the capitalʼs criminal groups. The presence of the Security Service operative at the specified address was due to checking the location of a person involved in another criminal case. The specified actions are in no way related to the activities of either the Kyiv Independent editorial office or media representatives in general," the SBU press service noted.

Separately, law enforcement sources told “Schemes” that the man whom SBU calls a person involved in the criminal proceedings is the former owner of the apartment where Shevchenko lives.

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