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Internet journalist attacked, again
Assailants used rubber bullets in latest incident
Unknown assailants shot at and wounded the editor of a
Ukrainian investigative News Web site on Jan. 12 in what appears
to be another attempt to intimidate independent journalists.
Oleh Yeltsov, the founder of Ukrainska Kriminalnaya
(Criminal Ukraine), was shot twice at about 10:00 p.m. as he
accompanied his wife home to their apartment in Kyiv’s Darnytsya
district.
“The first shot hit me in the back of the leg,” said Yeltsov,
who said he was hit a second time in the chest after the assailant
circled around to face him at point-blank range. Rubber bullets
were used in the attack.
Yeltsov said the bullets caused painful bruises but drew little
blood.
“It was another weird attack,” said Yeltsov, whose site
publishes investigative reports that allege the corruption of
government officials. Verkhovna Rada deputies frequently cite his
reports in formal requests to investigate alleged official
improprieties.
The writer has been targeted for reprisals before.
Yeltsov was beaten by two unidentified men in July, and
claimed that the attack was connected to his attempts to investigate
the murder of reporter Georgiy Gongadze, whose headless corpse
was found in 2000. Ukraine’s opposition has linked President
Leonid Kuchma to Gongadze’s murder. The veteran leader denies
any involvement.
Two men, one carrying a lead pipe and other an electro-
shock device, on July 24 attacked him near his home. Yeltsov then
sustained a welt on the back of his head and an electric burn on his
arm.
Hours before the latest attack, the Institute of Mass
Information, which represents the Paris-based Reporters Without
Borders watchdog group, reported a “strengthening of certain

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