Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
There is no information yet about the whereabouts of operator Bondarenko.
Yesterday it became known that in Vienna, during a business trip, the head of the investigative journalism department of the publication Ukrainska Pravda, Mykhailo Tkach, was detained, while the whereabouts of his colleague Yaroslav Bondarenko are unknown. The editorial staff calls the detention illegal, demands the journalist's release and an explanation of the actions of Austrian law enforcement. Later, Ukrainska Pravda said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had already contacted the Austrian embassy in Vienna with a request for clarification of the situation, and in addition to the Foreign Ministry and the embassy, the issue is now being handled by the Department of Consular Service.
“We received information about the detention of Mykhailo Tkach. The Embassy of Ukraine in Austria has already contacted the Austrian side with a request for an explanation of the circumstances of this detention,” said Georhiy Tikhiy, spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The consul is already in contact with Austrian colleagues, officially submitted a request for access to the detained citizen.”
Later it became known that Tkach had already met with the consul and spoken with him, but after that the journalist was not released — Austrian law enforcement is holding him in custody.
For Tkach, this is not the first detention while working outside Ukraine: in February 2024-th, Polish police held him and Bondarenko for several hours near the Polish-Belarusian border, where they were shooting material about the transit of goods from Russia and Belarus. After the embassy intervened, the journalists were released.
They have repeatedly worked in Austria as well, which became a shelter for many Ukrainian VIP refugees, politicians, and oligarchs about whom Ukrainska Pravda published a series of investigations, “Battle Battalion Vienna.” It was there that Tkach at one time located the former head of the Constitutional Court, Oleksandr Tupytskyi, the godfather of Viktor Medvedchuk, and the deputy from the Opposition Platform — For Life and businessman Vadym Stolar, the family of Yevhen Muraev, oligarch Dmytro Firtash, as well as former regional officials and representatives of the government during Viktor Yanukovych's era.
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