A Kyiv district court has barred the investigative outlet Slidstvo.Info from publishing information about the real estate, deals, and investments of the brother of Ukraine’s State Bureau of Investigation director, just as the outlet and its partners prepared to release their findings.
Kyiv’s Pecherskyi District Court issued the injunction on July 6, the same day Slidstvo.Info and the Anti-Corruption Action Center (AntAC) were finalizing a joint investigation into 143 real estate properties linked to Kharkiv businessman Oleksandr Sukhachov, brother of SBI Director Oleksii Sukhachov.
Both organizations described the ruling as pressure on journalists and an assault on freedom of speech. They plan to appeal and will make every effort to publish the investigation.
“We worked on the report about Oleksandr Sukhachov together with the Anti-Corruption Action Center for several months,” said Slidstvo.Info journalist Maksym Savchuk, a co-author of the investigation. “We found a lot of interesting things — in particular, 143 apartments and office premises that belonged or belong to the elder Sukhachov, and we also uncovered threads leading to the State Bureau of Investigation, which is headed by his brother Oleksii Sukhachov.”
According to Savchuk, AntAC journalist Alina Stryzhak sent a request for comment to SBI Director Oleksii Sukhachov about two weeks ago, asking him to address the facts uncovered by the journalists. A similar request was sent to Parkovyi-2 LLC, a company connected to Oleksandr Sukhachov.
Instead of responding, the company turned to the Pecherskyi court. Notably, the application was filed with the court on Friday, July 3. By Monday morning — as the capital was recovering from an overnight assault — Pecherskyi District Court Judge Serhiy Vovk granted Parkovyi-2 LLC’s request.
“From this decision, we understand that the applicants are preparing a lawsuit regarding our investigation, which has not even been published yet,” said Anna Babinets, founder and editor of Slidstvo.Info. “And, I think, in order to make sure it definitely does not come out, they are banning us from publishing anything about the business activities of the SBI chief’s brother. They probably realize very well how much interesting and important information for society we have found.”
AntAC views the ruling as an attempt by authorities to prevent journalists from exposing corruption. “This court decision is a very dangerous precedent. It is a direct restriction on freedom of speech and a ban on publishing a socially important investigation,” said AntAC executive director Daria Kaleniuk. “We are convinced that right now they are simply testing a tool on AntAC and Slidstvo.Info on how to ban journalists from exposing corruption. Failure to comply with this decision carries fines, possible criminal prosecution, and a number of other consequences. We will definitely appeal it.”
Judge Vovk ruled that publishing online information about the property status of Oleksii Sukhachov’s brother, details of his acquisition of real estate objects, and sources of their financing could cause irreparable harm to a private individual that could not be remedied after the report’s release. The court also found that it would violate the commercial secret of Parkovyi-2 LLC. The ruling indicates that the SBI director’s brother did not give permission to disclose information about his 143 real estate objects.
“The court order imposing a preliminary ban on the release of a journalistic investigation looks like a gross interference in the activities of independent media,” said Ukrainian lawyer and media expert Liudmyla Pankratova. “Especially considering that the court issued such an order, in essence, in response to the journalists’ request to comment on the situation. So it turns out that the journalist reached out for comment, and instead received a court ban on the publication’s release.”
She added that Ukrainian legislation allows banning the dissemination of material before its publication. At the same time, when imposing such a strict restriction on media activities, the court must carefully analyze whether the ban would violate journalists’ and media rights. In the media lawyer’s view, such rulings create a negative judicial practice that will encourage others to turn to courts with similar demands for preliminary restrictions.
Slidstvo.Info will appeal the court decision and seek to exercise its right to publish the investigation, which has public significance.
The case bears all the hallmarks of a classic SLAPP lawsuit (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) that subjects of investigations file to block journalistic work and silence the public even before the piece is published.
Ukraine has committed to introducing anti-SLAPP legislation by 2027 in line with European Union standards. If a decision favoring the head of one of the country’s key law enforcement agencies blocks the work of journalists investigating his inner circle, the state is effectively violating its own European integration commitments.
