In Poland, on the border with Belarus, Polish law enforcement officers detained “Ukraiinska Pravda” [“Ukrainian Truth”] journalist Mykhailo Tkach and his cameraman for several hours. They filmed material about the transit of products between Poland and Russia and Belarus.
"Ukraiinska Pravda" writes about this with reference to Tkachʼs words.
The journalist said that they were detained by the police and taken to the commandantʼs office. The police were shown documents and journalist credentials, but they "started grabbing cameras and searching the car." All things, according to Tkach, were thrown on the hood. All memory cards from cameras, phones and documents were taken away. Then they were interrogated by representatives of the special service.
"During the interrogation at the commandantʼs office, I informed that we were journalists and said that we were filming how Poland trades with Russia through Belarus and how Poland trades with Belarus, and how agricultural products go from Russia and Belarus to Poland. It was clear that the representatives of the Polish special service were frightened. They started asking me who else knows about it, whether the Ukrainian authorities if they know about it. They asked who our sources are, and how we found out about it, and how long we have been working on this topic," noted Tkach.
As a result, he and the operator were kept in the commandantʼs office for at least 4 hours and only then released after permission from "above" [high authorities]. All this time, journalists were not allowed to contact anyone. The things were returned to them, but it turned out that part of the filmed material had been deleted.
The editor-in-chief of the “Ukraiinska Pravda” Sevgil Musaeva is outraged by the act of Polish law enforcement officers.
"We are outraged by this situation, which was normalized only after publicity and with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in Poland. The ʼUkraiinska Pravdaʼ team thanks the ambassador and consul for their quick response and concern," she said.