The head of the investigative journalism department of Ukrainska Pravda (UP) Mykhailo Tkach said that during his detention in Vienna, Austrian law enforcement officers brutally treated him and his colleague Yaroslav Bondarenko.
He spoke about this in a conversation with the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian News Agency Sevgil Musayeva.
According to Tkach, on October 8, he and cameraman Yaroslav Bondarenko were driving from one filming location to another. Not far from the center of Vienna, seven armed men in masks ran up to their car at a traffic light. Without explanation, they broke the windows of the car, pointed their weapons at them, and forced them to lie face down on the road.
"I felt like we were being detained like terrorists. That is, they didnʼt talk to us at all, there was just this shock scream, they were all screaming, pointing their weapons at us, and there was no communication," the journalist recalls.
Tkach said in English that he was a journalist, but one of the men pressed his knee against his neck and ordered him to be quiet. At first, the journalist did not understand who was detaining him and thought that he and his colleague had been kidnapped. Only later did he see police cars.
"My first thought was that maybe someone ordered our kidnapping. [...] I didnʼt notice any identification, questions, explanations, or any signs saying ʼpoliceʼ," Mykhailo Tkach said.
During the arrest, Bondarenko was injured by glass — he had to have stitches put on his face in the hospital. Tkach has not seen his colleague since then.
At the police station, Tkach was in solitary confinement for about two hours. Later, he was interrogated with the participation of an interpreter. He was offered to sign a document in German, but Tkach refused, explaining that he did not understand what was written. According to the journalist, it irritated the policeman, and he began to shout.
The journalist said that he was charged with espionage in the interests of Ukrainian military intelligence, participation in a criminal organization, and causing harm to Austria.
Tkach claims that during interrogation, law enforcement officers did not provide evidence of the journalistsʼ illegal activities. Therefore, he suggests that the Austrian investigators may have been misled by people the journalists worked for in Vienna (in particular, former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko).
"I believe that in this case, one of the suspects we worked on could have misled the Austrian law enforcement system by providing it with information about some kind of cooperation with representatives of Ukrainian intelligence or the Ukrainian Armed Forces. [...] There are, of course, suspicions. We worked in general to search for Kravchenko. That is, it seems to me that it could be either him or people associated with him. There are no other options, versions or hypotheses at the moment," the journalist said.
At the time of the broadcast, Tkach was waiting outside the police station for Bondarenko to be released. He later posted a photo of himself with his colleague on social media.
Tkach / Telegram
The editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda also stated that the editorial office is awaiting an explanation from the Austrian side regarding the circumstances of the detention.
What preceded
On the evening of October 8, the editorial office of UP reported that their journalist Mykhailo Tkach and cameraman Yaroslav Bondarenko were illegally detained in Vienna while they were carrying out an editorial assignment related to the search for former Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko.
Tkach was released on October 9. The editor-in-chief of UP Sevgil Musayeva stated that Mykhailo Tkach was held in Vienna for over 12 hours, but that morning there was no contact with him.
The Vienna prosecutorʼs office later said that Tkach and Bondarenko were detained on suspicion of espionage, but this was not confirmed. Two other Ukrainians are also being held in Vienna on suspicion of espionage — they were detained earlier this week, but their names are not being disclosed.
Der Standard, citing court spokeswoman Christina Salzborn, writes that these two Ukrainians may be employees of Ukraineʼs military intelligence.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine, please follow us on X.