MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak released an investigation into the owners of the five largest Telegram channels — «Insider», «Ukraine Now», «Ukraine Online», «Real War», and Times of Ukraine.
MP Yaroslav Zheleznyak released an investigation into the owners of the five largest Telegram channels — «Insider», «Ukraine Now», «Ukraine Online», «Real War», and Times of Ukraine.
According to the People’s Deputy, all of these media channels have an audience of millions and have been seen in information attacks on anti-corruption bodies, as well as in attempts to whitewash the participants in «Mindichgate.»
According to market sources cited by Zheleznyak, a paid post on one of these channels costs at least $2,000-4,000, but the secret owners of Telegram channels declare symbolic amounts of income — «at best, several tens of thousands of dollars a year.»
Zheleznyak calls the co-owners of the Times of Ukraine and «Ukraine Online» channels Oleg Harutyunyants and Bohdan Tymoshchuk, who are moderately public figures, speak at professional events about Telegram, and do not hide their occupations, noting that they promote channels on Telegram.
According to the People’s Deputy’s sources, the Insider channel is owned by Andriy Sakharov, and the Real War channel belongs to 31-year-old Vadym Klymovets.
The TV channel «Ukraine Now» probably belongs to Vyacheslav Mishalov.
«This is the only case of these five channels where the owner demonstrates a fairly wealthy lifestyle, but there is one nuance: he had a fortune before he launched or bought the channel,» Zheleznyak said.
The «carousel» contains data on Bohdan Tymoshchuk, Oleh Harutyunyants, Andriy Sakharov, and Vadym Klymovets.
In turn, each of the four other potential owners of the aforementioned TG channels has shown insignificant or even symbolic wealth over the past few years, although some of them themselves admitted in interviews that a TG channel with such an audience brings in at least $50,000 per month.
The People’s Deputy also names numerous real estate properties and luxury cars owned by the owners of these news channels.
Previously, dev.ua wrote about how Telegram allows you to advertise online casinos in Ukrainian social media channels: for this, it uses its sponsored messages function .
