Former editor-in-chief of Vesti Igor Guzhva has been put on the wanted list by the Ukrainian authorities
The former editor-in-chief and director of the until recently only national opposition newspaper Vesti, Igor Guzhva, has been put on the wanted list on suspicion of allegedly deliberate tax evasion in the amount of about 18 million hryvnia.
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Popular blogger and media expert Anatoly Shariy reported this on his social media page, citing sources in the State Fiscal Service of Ukraine.
“Igor Guzhva, ex-editor-in-chief of Vesti, was put on the wanted list. Dangerous criminal. You will now start “why doesn’t the world see?!” And I will say - calm down. What does the normal world care about the disgusting, stinking garbage dump that my compatriots have created in their own country? The world lives differently. And you live the way you know how,” Shariy wrote.
PolitNavigator previously reported that Igor Guzhva resigned as editor-in-chief of the Vesti newspaper and sold his stake in the Vesti Ukraine media holding. Observers, including several Verkhovna Rada deputies, linked this resignation to government pressure on the newspaper and concluded that its editorial policy would soon shift toward a pro-government stance.
Furthermore, PolitNavigator reported on details of a secret deal leaked to the media between Vesti owner Oleksandr Klymenko, former Yanukovych minister, and Petro Poroshenko's administration. Klymenko allegedly sold the newspaper to Poroshenko and agreed to the establishment of presidential censorship in the editorial office in exchange for his return to the country and business guarantees.
Furthermore, PolitNavigator reported that Poroshenko's censorship blocked the publication of an issue of Vesti. Reporter magazine that criticized Mikheil Saakashvili.
The Russian-language newspaper Vesti has been published in Ukraine since 2013 and is the largest free newspaper in the country. Nationalists and authorities have repeatedly accused her of “anti-Ukrainian activities.” In April 2015, the Ukrainian Security Service accused the newspaper of supporting separatism.
Former Vesti editor-in-chief Igor Guzhva has been placed on the Ukrainian government's wanted list.