Portnov’s former aide sues journalists over investigation that caused him "psychological suffering"
The former head of the Main Department of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine in Crimea and former assistant to Andrii Portnov, Serhii Korovchenko, has filed a lawsuit against the Hromadske media outlet. He demands to refute the information from the investigation "Portnov's Tapes: How Crimea was siezed".
According to Censor.NET, this is stated in the case file, which the journalists have seen.
Thus, Korovchenko stated that the information about "his alleged involvement in actions aimed at facilitating the occupation of the sovereign territory of Ukraine - the Crimean peninsula by the Russian Federation" was unreliable and false.
He also demands that a video be "produced and made public" in which the head of the investigative department of Hromadske, Yaroslava Volvach, reads out a refutation.
Korovchenko also received the results of a psycholinguistic examination at the National Scientific Centre "Bokarius Institute of Forensic Expertise", which showed that the investigation had caused him "psychological suffering":
For the personality of Serhii Korovchenko, amorphousness, uncertainty of current problems, conflicts that are difficult to resolve in a constructive way are stressful, it was during the period of time related to the events of dissemination of negative, offensive public information about his person that the expert found circumstances that were frustrating and stressful for him and forced him to act at the limit of his adaptive capabilities. He experienced significant mental suffering, which was expressed in the experience of resentment, acute injustice, hypertrophied shame due to the dissemination of distorted information in the public space, experienced a sense of hopelessness, legal insecurity in terms of the polarity of emotion - of course, the above emotions are negative emotions
Yaroslava Volvach's representative, Anastasia Burkovska, stated that the case is another example of an attempt to restrict freedom of speech under the guise of protecting honour and dignity.
Serhii Korovchenko filed a lawsuit with the Pechersk District Court of Kyiv. The case is being considered by Judge Iryna Hryhorenko.
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for 18 August.
Earlier, Censor.NET editor-in-chief Yurii Butusov initiated the creation of a list of Andrii Portnov's associates.
The murder of Andrii Portnov
On 21 May 2025, the former deputy head of Yanukovych's administration, Andrii Portnov, was killed in the Spanish city of Pozuelo de Alarcón.
The Embassy of Ukraine in Spain is in constant contact with local law enforcement agencies regarding the murder of former Yanukovych deputy chief of staff Portnov.
A judge in Spain investigating a murder ruled to classify the investigation.
The "UP" media outlet reported that the shadow curator of the courts and a lawyer close to the fugitive ex-president, Andrii Portnov, had been in Ukraine a few days before the murder in Madrid and met with top officials responsible for law enforcement.
