Georgiy Gongadze - Timeline of Reporters Killed in Ukraine

Timeline of Reporters Killed in Ukraine

Under former President Leonid Kuchma opposition papers were closed and several journalists died in mysterious circumstances.

Year Date Event
1995 April Volodymyr Ivanov of Slava Sevastopolya, in Sevastopol
1996 May Ihor Hrushetsky in Cherkasy
1997 13 March Petro Shevchenko, correspondent for the daily Kyivskiye Vedomosti in Luhansk, Ukraine, is found hanging in an abandoned building in Kiev. He had co-authored articles about disputes between the mayor of Luhansk and the local branch of the Ukrainian Security Services.
11 August Borys Derevyanko, editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian newspaper, Verchernaya Odessa, shot twice and killed while on the way to an editorial board meeting at his office.
1999 16 May Ihor Bondar director of the AMT television station, was shot and killed in the an Odessa residential neighbourhood, as he was driving in a car with Boris Vikhrov, the Odessa court's presiding judge. The magistrate was also killed in the attack. This double murder was carried out by men with Kalashnikov-style automatic weapons riding in a car.
2000 16 September Georgiy Gongadze co-founded a news website, Ukrayinska Pravda, killed in the Taraschanskyi Raion (district) after being kidnapped.
2001 24 June Oleh Breus publisher of the regional weekly, XXI Vek, was shot dead by two gunmen outside his home in Luhansk. He was shot in the head and back at point blank range as he was getting out of his car. The motive for the murder remains unknown, although colleagues at XXI Vek said they had received threats in recent months. Breus himself narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in December 2000.
7 July Ihor Oleksandrov, director of the private TV and radio station TOR in Sloviansk, died of injuries sustained on 3 July, when four unidentified men wielding baseball bats attacked him at his office. Local media suggested that Oleksandrov's death was linked to his investigations into corruption and organised crime. Four former policemen where sentenced to 7-13 years imprisonment for fraud during the criminal case involving Oleksandrov in March 2012.
2002 27 November Mykhailo Kolomiets, co-founder of Ukrainian News Agency found dead hanging on a tree in Belarus.
2003 14 December Volodymyr Karachevtsev, 47, deputy editor-in-chief of Kuryer newspaper, was found dead in his home in Melitopol]. He was discovered hanging from the handle of his refrigerator. Karachevtsev was also chairman of the regional independent union of journalists and a correspondent for the online publication, Vlasti.net. Police did not rule out the possibility of murder.
2004 3 March Yuriy Chechyk, director of Radio Yuta in Poltava, died under suspicious circumstances in a car crash. He was on the way to meet with executives of Radio Liberty's Ukrainian Service, which is often critical of the Ukrainian government, to hold talks on rebroadcasting the station's programmes on the more accessible FM band.
2010 August Vasyl Klymentyev, a Ukrainian investigative journalist, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Novy Stil based in Kharkiv. He went missing in August and is presumed dead. He had been investigating local corruption.


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