Ukrainian Journalist Pavel Sharoyko Pardoned and Released

«Jour­nal­ist Pavel Sharoyko, who was sen­tenced to 8 years in Belarus, has been par­doned and is already at home, in Ukraine,» Zelen­sky said.

On Sep­tem­ber 26, 2019, talk­ing to the Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ists, Lukashen­ka declared that he was ready to par­don Sharoyko after Ukraine releas­es Belaru­sian cit­i­zen Yury Poli­ty­ka sus­pect­ed of espi­onage. Lukashen­ka also said, they had ear­li­er agree­ments with the ex-Pres­i­dent of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko on the issue, but Kyiv failed to ful­fill the agree­ment.

On Octo­ber 3, the dis­trict court of Cherni­hiv released Poli­ty­ka, who has been accused of col­lect­ing clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion in favor of «uniden­ti­fied state body of Belarus.» He was released from cus­tody on his own recog­ni­zance to attend the court hear­ings and not to influ­ence wit­ness­es. At the same time, he has not been restrict­ed from trav­el­ing out­side Ukraine.

Sharoyko Case

Ukrain­ian jour­nal­ist Pavel Sharoyko was sen­tenced to 8 years in prison for espi­onage. Accord­ing to the Belaru­sian KGB, Sharoyko is a mem­ber of the main intel­li­gence depart­ment of Ukraine’s Min­istry of Defense and was detained red-hand­ed dur­ing an under­cov­er activ­i­ty. Accord­ing to the KGB, he cre­at­ed an agent net­work of cit­i­zens of Belarus, who he paid to col­lect intel­li­gence infor­ma­tion in the mil­i­tary-polit­i­cal sphere for him.

Pavel Sharoyko said, he was sub­or­di­nate to Ihor Skvortsov, a mem­ber of the main intel­li­gence depart­ment of Ukraine’s Min­istry of Defense, who act­ed under the guise of an advis­er to the Embassy of Ukraine in Belarus. Skvortsov had to leave Belarus as per­sona non gra­ta for activ­i­ties incom­pat­i­ble with the diplo­mat­ic sta­tus.