Earlier on Friday, Radio Vesti said the Ukrainian special services were conducting searches in its offices in Kiev and blocked the work of the station’s editorial office.
Ukraine’s Chief Military Prosecutor Anatolii Matios said that law enforcement officers were conducting more than 180 searches on the offices in the facility — owned by former Revenues and Duties Minister Oleksandr Klymenko — where the editorial office of Radio Vesti.
However, Simon argued that when machine-gun armed elite forces raid a radio station and search its journalists' mobile phones for contacts and text messages, one can only conclude the effort is an attempt to intimidate its staff.
"This is an attempt at intimidation and a serious threat to press freedom," Simon said.
Ukraine Minister of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov sought to assure the public the actions of the law enforcement personnel were not related to the work of the journalists.
