Kyiv has stripped the military accreditation of a reporter with Russia’s independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper, alleging she revealed the positions of Ukrainian government troops that are fighting Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The AFP news agency quotes a spokeswoman for Ukraine's SBU national security service as saying the decision was made against correspondent Yulia Polukhina because she used Novaya Gazeta's website to reveal "Ukrainian soldiers’ positions on the front line."
On July 8, Novaya Gazeta published video footage of an industrial hangar purportedly used by Ukrainian snipers to fire at separatists near their de facto capital of Donetsk.
Polukhina said in the footage that she was reporting from the town of Avdiyivka just north of Donetsk.
But Novaya Gazeta denied that the buildings were firing positions, saying they were places where soldiers live -- and that Polukhina filmed the location openly and with the approval of a press officer from the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Journalists must have special permits from both the SBU and Kyiv's military to cover the war in eastern Ukraine.
Novaya Gazeta publishes critical and investigative coverage of Russian political and social affairs, including criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
