Anatoly Shariy

Shariy involved in the incident when he shot at a man from a gun with rubber bullets at a McDonald's restaurant. According to Shariy he did this after the man attacked his wife.[3][18] Shariy came to the fast food with his wife, who gave birth to a child a few months ago, reports in his blog at UP Alexander Chalenko - "An unknown man came to them and started insulting Anatoli's wife. After Anatoly asked him to calm down, the bullfighter pulled him out of the "McDonald's".  Anatoly pulled a gun and shot him twice." Later Sharij reported the incident to police.[19][20]

Shariy claims that the McDonald's shooting case was trumped up due to his investigation of illegal controlled substance trade, which he alleged was covered up by high rank members of Ukrainian law enforcement.[21]

Shariy sought and received the asylum in the European Union claiming persecution by the Ukrainian law enforcement for his journalist activities.[22]

In 2011, together with the journalists of the 1+1 TV channel, Shariy carried out a series of investigations of the alleged protection of the illegal controlled substance trade in Kyiv pharmacies by the Office for Combating Illegal Drug Trafficking of the Ministry of Internam Affairs (Ukrainian abbreviation: UBNON).[23] On June 7, 2011, Shariy published the first part of the article "Does UBNON Spit in the Face of the Minister?". On June 11, Shariy was summoned for interrogation in the McDonald's shooting case, which had allegedly been closed already. On June 20, Shariy gave a press conference about the situation and claimed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and UBNON ordered the pressure on him. The next day, June 21, the criminal case for hooliganism was initiated against Shariy related to McDonald's shooting.[24]

Next month Shariy with the journalists of the "1+1" TV channel issued several publications alleging the involvement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in covering up illegal casinos in Kiev. On July 12, 2011, Shariy and the film crew of the "1+1" channel were locked on the casino premises. Shortly thereafter criminal investigators arrived and seized 34 slot machines and equipment with the video with the recordings of the hall, resulting in a criminal case on gambling business.[25][26]

On July 12, 2011 at 3:30 am, a few hours after the incident in the casino, a shot was fired at Shariy's car. The car was damaged, but the journalist was not injured. Shariy refused to write a statement and admit himself a victim. In October 2011, criminal case on an attempted assassination was opened.[27][28][29]

The car shooting incident was cited as an example of attacks on journalists in the Human Rights Watch report for year 2011.[30]

After the attempted murder Shariy continued his journalistic activities. On September 21, 2011, after another publication exposing corruption in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the case on the assassination attempt on Shariy was closed, and a criminal case was initiated against the journalist himself for "staging an assassination attempt".[24]

After being placed on the all-Ukrainian wanted list, Shariy left the country and asked for political asylum in the European Union. In 2012 he was granted asylum and received a permanent residency permit in Lithuania for 5 years.[12]

In May 2018 Shariy posted a series of videos which reported anti-Semitic and other racist posts by Ukrainian consul in Hamburg Vasyl Marushinets (Василь Марушинець) in his Facebook page. Ukrainian officials tried to distance themselves from Marushinets claiming that they did not know anything about his views. Shariy proved that this cannot be true, because a number of posts of this type were "liked" by Ukrainian diplomats, and that Marushinets posted his views not only in the privacy of Facebook, but in open forums as well.[31] The subsequent scandal have led to recall of Marushinets "for disciplinary proceedings",[32][33][34] and on May 30, 2018, he was fired.[35] In December 2019 he was restored citing violations of the formal procedure and was paid the losses of about $9,000.[36]

An article of Detector Media cites Shariy's YouTube videos where he refers to the War in Donbass as "internal conflict" and "civil war", while not denying the presence of Russian military in the area.[37]

He advocates for a united Ukraine, so he does not recognize the elections on November 2 in DNR and LNR, although he respects the democratic right of the people of the South-East to self-determination.[38] Also he maintains that Crimea is Ukraine.[39]

Throughout the presidency of Petro Poroshenko, Anatoly Shariy has repeatedly criticized his activities, in particular the president's actions to resolve war in Donbass, the president's PR on these events, as well as PR on dubious successes and achievements that either were not such or were committed by predecessors of Poroshenko. Shariy alleges that in response to his criticism the presidential administration launched a campaign to discredit the journalist. In addition, the administration submitted a request to the Google corporation, in which it demanded to disclose the place of residence of the authors of several YouTube channels, among which was the channel of Anatoly Shariy.[40]

In response to these actions in December 2018, Anatoly Shariy offered UAH 15,000 to anyone who asks Poroshenko about the reasons for the persecution of blogger Shariy. In early 2019 in many cities of Ukraine this question was asked during meetings with the president. In a number of cases, there was an inadequate reaction of the president and his guards to this: the president's bodyguards knocked the phones out of the hands of the questioners, "the SBU officers beat the brave ones, and the president himself tore off their caps", slapped in the face and pinched those who voiced question.

When in late February - early March 2019, journalists from website bihus.info published the correspondence of Ukroboronprom leaders who were engaged in money laundering on parts for military equipment purchased in Russia, Anatoly Shariy presented evidence that President Petro Poroshenko's company "Leninskaya Kuznya" took part in the laundering of the state budget of the country by selling obviously unusable spare parts at an overpriced (3-6 times) price.[41]

Some time after the election of President Volodymyr Zelensky and of the dominating parliamentary majority of his party, Servant of the People, Shariy began to criticize the leaders of the party, the government formed by them, and in particular the Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka, who made a number of controversial decisions (refusing to sign the suspicion statement against the activist Sergey Sternenko and signing a suspicion against Olena Lukash, former Minister of Justice during the President Viktor Yanukovych times).

Shariy actively opposed the land privatization program, which was implemented at the request of the IMF, as well as against the issuance of the next tranche of the IMF, which was signed on conditions unfavorable for Ukraine. Blogger began to criticize the authorities for their unwillingness to fulfill their election promises regarding the prosecution and initiation of criminal cases against representatives of the old government, in particular former President Petro Poroshenko, as well as activists, who, due to their special status (including work for the Security Service of Ukraine) avoided punishment for the crimes committed in part or in full. The video blogger called Vladimir Zelensky a “killer” and a man “with blood on his hands”, accused him of using death squads, dictatorial habits and the use of security forces and Security Service of Ukraine officers against his party.

After the “brotherhood“ of Sternenko attacked journalists of “Shariy.net“ on June 11— 12, Shariy called his supporters to a rally near the President's office.[42][43] On 15 June, during the peaceful rally, the demonstrators demanded Zelensky's reaction to the current situation.[44][45][46]

Ukrainian media and politicians routinely describe Shariy as a pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian propagandist; see e.g., the Ukrainian News Agency[47] and others.[32]

Deputy from the "Servant of the People" and former External Advisor to the President of Ukraine Geo Leros published a document about topic lists issued by the Office of the President for the Ukrainian media, on how they must comment on different events.[48][49] The document contained instructions on headlines and how to comment on various situations, including how the Ukrainian media should cover Anatoliy Shariy - what statements are worth talking about in relation to him, as well as about the protest action "The Mute President is not my President" (in Russian it is a pun: "Nemoy president - ne moy president").[50][51]

Immediately after that, the Ukrainian media began to regularly sign Shariy with the thesis - pro-Russian, only confirming that the deputy from the Servants of the people put up the real topic list of the Office of the President. On August 28 the car of Geo Leros - was set on fire[52][53][54]

In February 2017 Shariy demanded through the court to refute the information published by the Internet publication "Detector Media, which, defames his honor, dignity and business reputation because of the article of journalist Bohdan Lohvynenko, in which Shariy was called "the bullhorn of the Russian world" and "a scandalous Ukrainian pseudo refugee" . In court, representatives of the defendants said that the definition of "Russian world" in itself does not carry a negative connotation, and therefore Shariy should not resent the expression "bullhorn of the Russian world".[55] The objection was stated:

"There are many definitions, views, concepts, interpretations of history and conceptual principles of the idea of "the Russian world" <...> the definition given by playwright Nikolai Ostrovsky that "the Russian world is a human community of Orthodox Christians living in the unity of faith, ritualism and customs" is indicative. According to the supporters of the concept, the word "Russian" in the name indicates the historical roots of the community, which originated in ancient Russia, and the word "world" - the meaning of "all light", "all people" - explains their position the side of Detector Media.

Another court case was considered after journalist Vitaliy Portnikov characterized Shariy as a "Kremlin project" and "one used by its Russian owners". And Anatoli Shariy filed a lawsuit to refute these words. As a result, it turned out that Portnikov meant only his assumptions, but not the facts.[56][57]

Petro Poroshenko, at a meeting with voters, called the blogger a "Kremlin bastard.".[58] On 10 January 2019, Ukrainian ex-President Petro Poroshenko said that the media expert was not a Ukrainian journalist and worked for Russia. In the same month, Shariy appealed to him and the presidential administration with a lawsuit demanding that the information be recognized as unreliable and humiliating to his honor, dignity and business reputation

In May 2020 Pechersky District Court of Kyiv declared that it had not seen evidence that Shariy works for Russia, is a Russian journalist or works for any person who is a resident of the Russian Federation and has found such information unreliable.[59][60][61] As a result, the Court ordered Poroshenko to place an announcement about the denial of false information in the nearest issue of the Uryadovy Kuryer newspaper. In the announcement, Poroshenko must declare that he distributed false information about Shariy during his working trip to Rivne region.[62][63]

Shariy responded to these accusations by declaring that last years he did not like Vladimir Putin and that he would not call to vote for him.[64] In 2015 Shariy announced a reward of 1,000 Euro to anybody who demonstrates a piece of pro-Russian or anti-Ukrainian propaganda in his posts.[65] During the 2019 Parliamentary Elections he increased the bounty to 5,000 Euro.[66] Yury Melnik of Lviv National University explains that it is close to impossible to find his quotations in support of his pro-Russianess. However he writes that this conclusion may be drawn from the one-sidedness of Shariy's criticism: he criticizes "pro-Ukrainian and pro-European forces in Ukraine and opposition forces in Russia", while he seldom comments on the actions of the Russian state.[66]

In 2009, Shariy won the Yousmi Web-Journalism Award for "Best Story (Non-Professional)".[67] In April 2016 Shariy was named laureate of the Russia-based International Literary-Media Oles Buzina Contest (Международный литературно-медийный конкурс имени Олеся Бузины).[68]

In November 2017, in a rating of the personalities by number of readers in the Ukrainian segments of Facebook and Twitter, Shariy got the 12th place with the aggregate audience of 511,000 people.[69][70] In the same month he was number 3 of the top most popular Ukrainian political bloggers on Facebook according to the rating of Espreso TV.[71]

Journalist Vladimir Posner commented on Shariy's work, saying that Shariy was one of those who had the right to be called a journalist, because, unlike many others, Shariy is calling a spade a spade.[72]

In 2019 Shariy was 34th in the list of Top 100 most influential people and phenomena in Ukraine according to the newspaper Vesti.[73]

The company Brand Analytics regularly publishes its ratings of Russophone YouTube-bloggers. In its ratings February 2019, in terms of viewer engagement rate (defined by the company as the sum of likes and comments), Shariy's vlog held the 1st place, collecting about 3 million likes and 430,000 comments. In terms of audience, with 1.8 million subscribers he was on the 38th place. The company noticed that political topics usually attracts a small fraction of YouTube viewers.[74] In its June 2020 ranking - Top 20 Russian-speaking YouTube bloggers in terms of involvement, Anatoly Shariy was the 3rd with 4.4 million people involved.[75]

Shariy entered the list of TOP 20 opinion leaders in social networks and took the twelfth line of the rating of opinion leaders in social networks[76]

He was also included in the top-list of people who have more influence on Ukrainian youth in social networks. Shariy entered the top 20 and took the 10th place.[77][78]

Anatoly Shariy belonged to the Organizing Committee of the movement "Love Against Homosexuality". In that position Shariy declared: “The danger is that sometimes skinheads want to join the movement, [our] movement has nothing to do with that… They [homosexual people] should sit and be happy that they are not getting killed. (…) From their side should be respect; on my part there is nothing to respect them for, [they are] sick people.” According to him the ultimate goal of Love Against Homosexuality is the following: “[When] homosexual people stay in their apartments and won't come out to streets, to mass media and won't propagate their life style,” “we demand criminal liability for propaganda of homosexualism.”[79]^:42–43 On October 8, 2008 Shariy represented the movement "Love Against Homosexuality" on a TV show of the TV channel Inter.[80]

In the article "Blue Rust. Dictatorship of Sodomites" Shariy wrote: “In Iran, after the Islamic revolution of 1979 over 4000 of lesbians and homosexuals have been sentenced to death. The clerical regime has also executed many women for adulterate sex. (…) I suppose the situation with prostitution, pedophilia, and rape in Iran is hundreds of times better than in our extremely cultured and civilized country.”[79]^{:46–47, 57}[81]

In 2017 Russian lawyer Mark Feygin accused Shariy of pedophilia both in social networks and traditional media several times. It particular, in July 2017 during a live broadcast of the show "My Truth" on the "Moscow Talking" radio channel, Feygin stated "He (Anatoly Shariy) is under investigation for pedophilia".[82] Shariy sued him for defamation, and eventually, after Feygin's appeal, won the case.[83] On 24 April 2018 the Moscow Chamber of Lawyers stripped Mark Feygin of his attorney status. He has been allowed to reinstate it after a period of one year by passing a bar exam or by successfully appealing the Chamber's decision. The ruling was based on Feygin's "inappropriate statements" (foul language) made towards Anatoly Shariy's lawyer Stalina Gurevich and Shariy himself .[84] The court agreed with the plaintiff that Mark Feygin used foul language via his Twitter account to address a lawyer colleague and her client.[85]

While Shariy's political party Party of Shariy was registered to take part in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election, according to the Ukrainian law, Shariy himself could take part in the elections, because the 5 years leading up to the election he did not live in Ukraine.[86] Nevertheless, on 2 July 2019, the Central Election Commission (CEC) registered Shariy's candidate running for parliament according to a June 30 decision of the Supreme Court.[87] On the next day, 3 July 2019, this decision was reverted. In an interview to the Ukrainian TV channel Nash TV Shariy explained his actions in the event. When his registration was rejected for the first time due to the 5-year residency criterion, he contested the decision on the grounds that there was no legal evidence of his absence, because the Ukrainian border guard had no data about his border crossing. Accepting this argument, the Supreme Court instructed the CEC to accept the registration. However the next day CEC was ordered to revert this decision based on an additional evidence which in Shariy's opinion has no legal standing. He presented this controversy as a test for the absence of the rule of law in Ukraine, comparing it with the United States, where a case may be thrown out of the court on formal grounds (e.g., failure to read the Miranda warning to a detained suspect).[88]

In 2014 published a video in which he made some controversial statements about some inhabitants of Western Ukraine:[89]

Unpleasant information came to me that in Kyiv, the inhabitants of Western Ukraine suddenly began to tell the people of Kyiv how they should behave, how they have to love Ukraine, how they need to sing the anthem, walk with the flag. I have several friends from Western Ukraine, I respect these people, I am proud of friendship with them, these are quite sane people. I ask my appeal to the irresponsible women not to consider him chauvinism and racism and something else. [...] You... I am Ukrainian, and you are not Ukrainians. You second... there, second... well, I don't say second grade, no, you are just half-breeds. Three-timers, foursquads. You are half fucking Poles, half you are Hungarians, half you the devil knows what you are really. Do not tell the people of Kyiv how they should behave, how they need to love the country, love their flag. Because it is not your flag. You have no flag. You are not Ukrainians.

Shariy later apologized for the video and said that he was talking only about certain individuals.[89]