Ukraine's Security Service detains former journalist who called for armed protest against mobilisation

The Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has detained a well-known provocateur who called for an armed resistance against mobilisation in Ukraine, and his accomplice.

Source: the SSU; the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office; sources of Ukrainska Pravda in law enforcement

Details: Sources of Ukrainska Pravda report that the detainee is Zhan Novoseltsev, former TV journalist who now calls himself a blogger.

He engaged several accomplices in an information and sabotage activity in favour of Russia. Among them there are wannabe experts, administrators of online communities and video editors.

The investigation reports that the persons of interest called for an armed resistance against the employees of military enlistment offices and law enforcement and spread misinformation about the Ukrainian defence forces.

In order to spread provocative content on a large scale, the perpetrators created their own network of channels and pages on YouTube, Telegram and Facebook, with a total audience of over 600,000 users, the SSU reports.

Using these Internet sources, they conducted streams and published posts with videos, in which they urged Ukrainian citizens to resort to violent methods of military draft evasion.

They also created a website on which they leaked personal information of the Ukrainian military, mainly the employees of military enlistment offices and the members of law enforcement.

To cover the sabotage activity, the participants of these groups pretended to be journalists by using the certificates of non-registered media outlets.

As of now, two organisers of the group, the blogger and his accomplice, a self-styled expert, have been detained.

Under the procedural management of the Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office, 44-year-old former TV journalist (Novoseltsev) and his three accomplices were served with a notice of suspicion on the fact of obstructing the legal activity of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other armed formations during a martial law, committed by a group of persons upon their prior conspiracy.

For reference: The Zaxid.net media outlet reports that Zhan Novoseltsev is a long-standing associate of Ostap Stakhiv, an anti-vaccinator and provocateur from the city of Lviv.

Novoseltsev comes from the city of Kharkiv. From 2006 he was working on the 1+1 Ukrainian TV channel as a correspondent, and from September 2012 to May 2014 he was the host of the Hroshi (Money) programme. 1+1 ceased its cooperation with Novoseltsev as he began participating in the Hrom TV project, the production team of which had ties with Vitalii Zakharchenko. The latter was Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in the government of Mykola Azarov, former Prime Minister of Ukraine with a pro-Russian position and Russian ties.

In 2015, Novoseltsev with his colleague Oleksii Kutiepov who cooperated with Anatolii Sharii, pro-Russian blogger and propagandist, and is now abroad, participated in the broadcast of the Rossiya24 TV channel. In the broadcast, they claimed that the Ukrainian government "persecuted journalists" and that employees of their project called 17 Kanal (Channel 17) had been accused of collaboration with pro-Russian militants. Ruslan Kotsaba, a propagandist suspected of treason, also worked at this channel.  

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