An employee of the Security Service of Ukraine could have given instructions to representatives of the military registration and enlistment office to serve a draft summons to a Slidstvo.Info journalist. In such a way, the special services wanted to punish the investigator who exposed the elite property of the head of the SBU cybersecurity department, Illya Vitiuk, according to the investigation of Slidstvo.Info, which is based on video from surveillance cameras.
On Monday, April 1, the Slidstvo.Info journalist Yevhen Shulhat was approached by employees of the Solomyanskyi military registration and enlistment office who tried to hand him a draft summons, in a supermarket in the Obolonskyi district of Kyiv.
“I was surprised that they came up to me, addressed me by name, and clearly knew me by sight,” Shulhat says.
The journalist filmed the conversation with the soldiers, which later allowed him to identify them and talk to them. It is worth noting that the military registration and enlistment office workers traveled to another district and approached the journalist at 9.15 p.m.
The entrance to the mall where military registration and enlistment office employees met the Slidstvo.info journalist
In the conversation, the military personnel noted that Yevhen had recently turned 27 and had not come to the military registration and enlistment office to update his data. When the journalist started filming and asking questions about whether the situation was related to his work on an investigation into the head of the SBU cybersecurity department, the servicemen left, noting that they were recording his refusal to accept the summons.
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- Representatives of the Solomyanskyi military registration and enlistment office, who tried to serve a draft summons to the journalist
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- Representatives of the Solomyanskyi military registration and enlistment office, who tried to serve a draft summons to the journalist
Yevhen has recently been working on an investigation about Illya Vitiuk, head of the SBU’s cybersecurity department, which was released on April 4 – “Ill-gotten gains? SBU cybersecurity chief’s $650,000+ property empire exposed“.
“Since I was working on this story, I immediately suspected that I was stopped in the supermarket because of it,” Shulhat says.
The video from the surveillance cameras of the Dream shopping center, where the events described above took place, obtained by Slidstvo.info journalists, helped to see the bigger picture.
The video shows that at 9:08 p.m. the journalist enters the shopping center.
Journalist Yevhen Shulhat enters the shopping center
A few minutes later, two employees of the military registration and enlistment office enter the supermarket. They are accompanied by a man in civilian clothes. It is clear from the video that the man in civilian clothes is giving instructions to the employees of the military registration and enlistment office.
The employees of the military registration and enlistment office together with a man in civilian clothes enter the shopping center after the journalist
While the journalist is in the supermarket, the man in civilian clothes walks near the cash registers and then quickly returns to the military. He actively gestures, pointing to the military in different directions, and leaves the mall. Less than a minute later, the servicemen approached the journalist.
From what we saw, we can conclude that this man is pointing at Yevhen Shulhat.
The Slidstvo.info journalists identified the representatives of the Solomyanskyi military registration and enlistment office. One of them, Oleksandr (his surname is withheld for security reasons – ed.), confirmed that he works in this particular military registration and enlistment office, but refused to answer questions about the events in the mall. He claimed that such questions can only be asked through the command. His colleague Serhiy (surname withheld for security reasons – ed.), who was with him on the evening of April 1, reacted in the same way.
The soldiers did not agree to name the person who told them who exactly should be served with a draft summons. We have sent a request with detailed questions about the incident to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Perhaps they will explain on what grounds this person in civilian clothes was giving instructions to the military.
The journalists’ sources helped us to understand who exactly was the man who was directing the military registration and enlistment office employees. We were told that it could be Oleksiy Volodymyrovych Bilenko, a person close to Illya Vitiuk.
After searching the databases, the journalists found Oleksiy Volodymyrovych Bilenko, who used to work at the Lviv SBU office. Now he works in the SBU’s cybersecurity department. That is, in the department headed by Illya Vitiuk, a person compromised in Yevhen Shulhat’s investigation. We also found Oleksiy Bilenko’s phone number. Some Getcontact users previously wrote it down as “Lyosha SB”.
Oleksiy Bilenko, an employee of the Security Service of Ukraine
Oleksiy Bilenko did not respond to journalists’ calls, and after messages in messengers, he resorted to blocking the possibility of communicating with him.
Slidstvo.Info plans to submit the published findings to law enforcement agencies along with a statement of persecution and obstruction of journalistic activity.
