Tatiana Ivanovna Pop
Official biography
Born on July 25, 1983, Khust, Ukrainian SSR — public figure, journalist, blogger. In 2015, she was listed on the Myrotvorets website as an “accomplice of the Russian occupiers and anti-Ukrainian propagandist”.
Education.
Higher education, specialty — director
Tatiana considers Kyiv to be her second hometown, where she graduated from the institute, received a diploma in film directing and took her first steps in show business. For some time, the attractive girl worked as a model and simultaneously tried herself as an actress. Later, Tatiana mastered the skills of a DJ and for several years “spun records” in nightclubs in the Ukrainian capital.
Tatiana Pop never achieved great heights in the acting field. The young lady became recognizable after the once-popular show “Mom in Law” (2011) aired. On this project, the then-blonde Tanya successfully played the role of an insidious schemer and a rather uninhibited girl. In early 2012, Pop moved from Kyiv to Moscow. During her two years in the Russian capital, Tatiana made several cameo appearances in TV series. Wealthy gentlemen helped Pop to stay afloat.
Dirt on her
A few years ago, Tatiana Pop, a native of the Transcarpathian town of Khust, rose to fame in Russia. The person who started out as a participant in the TV shows “The Bachelor” and “House-2” later “made” a rapid political career and began to “broadcast” in the propaganda media of the aggressor country as a “defender of the interests” of the Kremlin’s version of political Rusynism. The headlines of those publications are more than eloquent — “We want to put an end to the ethnocide of Rusyns in Ukraine” and so on.
T. Pop is also known for her active support of pro-Russian separatists in Donbas. For which, accordingly, she is listed in the database of the Myrotvorets website as a “provocateur. A separatist, an accomplice of the Russian occupiers”. And on May 9, 2015, at the height of the Russian-Ukrainian war in Donbas, this “prostitute from Zakarpattia sold herself to Putin for 30 silver pieces” and went to the Victory Parade in Russia wearing a T-shirt “for Putin”.
Tatiana on the Myrotvorets website:
And more recently, this person has been involved in an odious group of “Kremlin Rusyns” who, according to them, discussed with the pro-Russian president of the Czech Republic the “greater autonomy” of Ukrainian Transcarpathia. As a result of that meeting, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry even summoned the Czech ambassador.
All would be well if only this “Rusyn” of Putin’s was sitting in Russia, keeping company with the “prime minister of Carpathian Rus” Petro Getsko, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison in Ukraine for separatism. But recently it has moved its activities to the territory of Ukraine.
Therefore, the readers of Zakarpattya online are invited to read the material from the Detector Media website, which was published just now, on February 26. And it partially sheds light on the latest “moves” of this odious person in Ukraine.
Who is Tatiana Pop?
In 2011, when the first season of The Bachelor with Maksym Chmerkovskiy was broadcast on STB, Tetiana Pop said that she came to the project in search of her soul mate. She didn’t stay on the project for long, and in the post-show of The Bachelor she told Anfisa Chekhova that she had a business in Ukraine (without specifying what exactly she was doing), and before that she had worked on regional television in her hometown of Khust. Later, Pop appeared on Alexey Durnev’s show, where she boasted of her shape, and then became a participant in Russian TV shows such as Mom in Law and Dom-2. It follows from social media that at least since July 5, 2013, Tatiana has been constantly in Moscow, where she took vocal and piano lessons, and then from November to December, she filmed for 32 days in the Dom-2 project.
At first, Tatyana hid her real age on the Dom-2 project:
In an interview with Detector Media, she clarified that she finally moved to Moscow in February 2015. At least once in the interview, she claimed that she was forced to leave Ukraine for Russia because of threats she received because of her attitude to the Maidan. «I was a media person, I did not support the Maidan, I did not support this government, I did not support the coup d’état, and I started writing my posts against the government when I was still living in Kyiv. But when you start speaking out against the government, you are immediately called a separatist, and I felt it necessary to move to Russia to educate my people,» Pop said in an interview with Anna News. Tatiana Pop wearing a T-shirt with Putin on it:
Tatiana did have a position, and it was quite unambiguous: in her posts on Vkontakte, Pop called the supporters of the Maidan «conscious», «Ukrainians», the government «junta», and those who supported the government «30% of morons», praised Stalin, insisted that «Ukrainians, Russians and Belarusians are one people», and «gays are sick people» who «must be punished».
Tatiana’s statements about gays:
She also wrote that Transcarpathia «will secede in order not to tolerate fascists in power.» At the same time, Pop’s first rather neutral statements about the Maidan and what is happening in Ukraine appeared on VKontakte only in January 2014; before that, she posted photos from her trips to Monaco, and never wrote about politics or history.
It was only in March-May 2014, when Tatiana was already living in Moscow, that she began to speak out a lot and sharply about the events in Ukraine. Currently, only her VKontakte posts are available, although she mentions her Facebook posts from that period — for example, the entry «Guys, add me on Facebook, I’m there more often!!!» from June 16, 2014 has been preserved. However, in a conversation with DM, Pop said that she only got a Facebook account in 2016.
«I created a page in 2016 and marked it as my only page because someone created a page on my behalf and wrote all kinds of nonsense. I wrote: «Here is my official page, guys, and whoever wrote some fake news on my behalf was definitely not me,» says Tetiana.
As soon as Tatiana started writing about politics, she was invited to various events held in Russia and to completely different television shows. For example, she took part in a «press conference at the Russian Union of Journalists on the events in Ukraine.» Tatiana Pop with Vitaly Zakharchenko:
In 2016, she attended a press conference by former Interior Minister Vitaly Zakharchenko at the Rossiya Segodnya news agency. And already in 2017, in the program «Actually» in August 2017, she said that the changes in Viktor Yushchenko’s appearance were the result of unsuccessful Botox injections. And his wife Kateryna Yushchenko is «a carrier of Nazi ideology, and her main job is to professionally introduce and legalize new Ukrainian nationalist movements» as well as Russophobia). She was introduced as a public figure and journalist.
Tatiana Pop is often photographed with Russian politicians and media personalities, such as Vladimir Zhirinovsky and Vladimir Solovyov; she recalls Viktor Yanukovych Jr. as a «good, bright man» whom she knew personally; Nikolai Starikov, leader of the right-wing Great Fatherland party, conspiracy theorist, and one of the founders of the Anti-Maidan movement in Russia (besides him, the movement also includes biker Alexander Surgeon Zalodostanov from the Night Wolves). Pop calls this man his «dear friend.» In the aforementioned interview with Anna News, Pop says that as an activist, she «has many friends, including in the Russian presidential administration.»
At the same time, in a conversation with Detector Media, she claims that she does not remember such a phrase:
— «How much happened five years ago? Within six months, a person grows, changes, changes their mind. But do you have friends in the Russian Presidential Administration?» I have no friends, and I can’t have any. I don’t work there, and I have nothing to do with it at all. In 2015, we were all activists, we were going through a personal tragedy, it was hard, especially for a person who had nothing to do with politics at the time. I watched it all on TV, I was very worried. I wrote posts on Facebook.
Until a certain point, Pop was known in the Ukrainian media only as a TV show participant, but she suddenly became famous after her 2018 trip to Czech President Zeman, whom she claims to have met twice — during Zeman’s last election campaign and after his election. The visit to the Czech president caused a lot of critical publications in the Ukrainian media, as in an interview with Ukraina.ru (a state-owned Russian resource, part of the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, funded by the Russian state budget), she claimed that she and a number of other people were «negotiating» with representatives of the Czech Republic, Austria, and the United States to «support the Carpathian Rusyns,» and stated that «it was within Czechoslovakia that Rusyns lived best.» The interview was conducted by Oleksandr Chalenko, who also interviewed her again in 2019 on the same topic. After this trip, Pop suddenly became the main spokesperson for the «Rusyn issue» in the Russian media, claiming that there was an «ethnocide of Rusyns» in Ukraine, and also saying that she had headed the Council of the Coordination Center of Rusyn Organizations registered in Austria. At the same time, the website of the same center has no mention of Tatiana Pop. The site itself was created in July 2019, registered by the Russian domain name registrar REG.RU LLC and at the time of publication of this article, the site’s IP address belongs to a Russian hosting provider in Moscow.
In a conversation with Detector Media, Pop claims that she gave only one interview to Ukraina.ru, and that the second interview was published without her permission, and that it was untrue: «I’m not going to give any more interviews to any Russian media outlet, because they distort everything, write absolutely not what they are told, so I specifically gave an interview to Echo Kyiv so that no one would distort my words.» She adds that she «does not communicate with Olena Berezovska at all» — at the same time, in one of the videos on Instagram, Tetiana Pop and Olena Berezovska are riding in a car and thanking each other for a pleasant evening. In an interview with Ekho Kyiv, Pop was also named as the head of the Coordination Center of the Russian Federation.
After moving to Russia, Pop began not only to actively comment on political events, but her business also took off. As she claims in a conversation with Detector Media, she has a house in Rublevka — she indeed often posts photos with the geotagged Nikolai Gore, Gorki-2, Barvikha, all of which are villages along the Rublevo-Uspenskoye highway in Russia. In addition, according to her, she has houses in Montenegro and Austria. At the same time, Pop is not listed as an entrepreneur in any Russian registry — she says she has the right to reside in Russia, but she has no citizenship and no business in Russia.
Tatiana Pop is for Putin:
Tatiana says that «she has many projects, including media projects,» but did not name any of them in the conversation, except for Ekho Kyiv. She was also «not ready to discuss» the sources of her income, but said that she was a «good salesperson» and that she «did not officially own any business» before moving to Russia. In the same conversation, she said that she had «pawnshops, a business in construction, particularly in Europe, and a public organization» and that she «created my business in Russia on my own, without a penny of investment.» After the interview, in a correspondence with a Detector Media journalist, Pop clarified that her «main business is a variety of online trading, ranging from clothing, transportation services to food and cosmetics.» The only reference to entrepreneur Tetiana Pop that Detector Media could find in Ukrainian registers was the NGO «Center for Monitoring the Fulfillment of Election Promises «Pravda».
Tatiana Pop and all those behind the Echo of Kyiv resource
The story of a Rublevka resident who participated in the TV shows “The Bachelor” and “House-2” and is now building a “liberal media” in Ukraine.
Tetyana Pop’s profile from The Bachelor:
Since at least 2015, the Ukrainian media have regularly reported on the launch of a project called Echo of Kyiv. Initially, these reports linked the project to the editorial office of Ekho Moskvy, its head Alexei Venediktov, and a former employee of the Russian radio station, Lesya Ryabtseva. Both denied any connection to the projects. However, at the moment, there are not one, but four resources with this name. «Detector Media studied the activities of the resources and spoke to the person who heads one of them.
The earliest to appear was echo.kiev.ua, with the first news on it dating back to November 24, 2015. Then, in early 2018, the sites echokieva1.ru, echo-ru.media, and echokieva.com appeared. All links that were posted on echo-ru.media are now redirected to echokieva.com. At the same time, the content on all of these sites was partially or completely duplicated between 2018 and mid-2019, which is easy to verify: if you search for the headline of any news from one of these resources, the search engine shows the same news on other sites. The latter three have the same logos, website design, and headings — at least until February 2020.
On the website echo-ua.media, also known as echokieva.com, the first news was dated January 1, 2018, which was the Orthodox calendar. Later on, the resource was filled with amazing content, mostly specific videos with channels from the SBU («Union of Bloggers of Ukraine»), Alexander Medynsky, Open Ukraine, and dozens of Kotsaba’s videos.
All of this was easy to find on the Echo of Kyiv website (domain echokieva.com) until last week. Interestingly, after a conversation between the project manager and a Detector Media journalist, the entire archive of materials from January 1, 2018, to mid-2019 was removed from the site. However, Google’s cache retains some of the publications, and the site itself retains URLs with the relevant headlines. For example, here is a story from February 1, 2018 on echo.kiev.ua titled «Shocking poll about the LDNR in the suburbs of Kyiv! You have to see this! » — its author is the already mentioned Oleksandr Medynskyi.
Since the end of summer 2019, such content has become rare on echokieva.com, with original content appearing on the website, mostly videos of former MP Olena Bondarenko from the Party of Regions interviewing her former party members and other guests. The Echo of Kyiv YouTube channel was registered in April 2019, and the first video appeared on it in August; the bulk of the videos, with rare exceptions, are video interviews titled «Echo with Olena Bondarenko.»
A number of other author’s materials on the website are short comments on various issues with MPs of the current convocation. All the materials, except for Bondarenko’s, are unsigned, there is no mention of the editorial staff, no editorial address, and, apart from a general email, there is no way to contact the staff, not even to place advertisements (after a conversation with a Detector Media journalist, the website has a phone number that cannot be used to contact the editorial staff). Both the channel and the “About Us” section of the website duplicate the same text, which states that:
— “Echo of Kyiv is an independent news and analytical publication about Ukraine, which started its work in 2019;
— journalists of “Echo of Kyiv” are people with a strong civic and professional position, true masters of their craft;
— in its work, Echo of Kyiv strictly adheres to the Constitution and current laws of Ukraine.
The resource’s Facebook page was also created in 2019, and it states that it is managed from two countries — Russia and Ukraine. The Ukrpatent website shows that an application for registration of the Echo of Kyiv trademark and logo (in black and white, as on the website with the domain echo.kiev.ua) was filed by Tetiana Pop in December 2018. The information that Tetiana Pop is related to the Echo of Kyiv website (echokieva.com) was confirmed by Olena Bondarenko in a conversation with Detector Media. She called Tetyana Pop her friend and clarified that she works with Echo of Kyiv on a volunteer basis.
For the curious: Petrosyan, “Night Wolves” and “Rossotrudnichestvo”
This NGO was registered in December 2014, and there is no mention of its activities on the Internet — except for the fact that Tatiana herself wrote on her VKontakte page in the spring of 2015 that she had founded the organization. About her NGO, Tatiana says that she “has not been involved in it at all so far,” but plans to develop the organization’s activities after she returns to Ukraine — she is currently looking for a job here.
The NGO has a co-founder, his name is Amram Davydovych Petrosyan, and he has a rather rich political biography. He was a member and then the head of the Party of Pensioners of Ukraine, and he ran twice, once in the local elections and again in 2012 for the Rada, and both times he failed. After completing his political career in Ukraine, since 2014 Petrosyan has been living in Russia, where he received citizenship and since 2015 has been heading the Foundation for the Development of Modern Diplomacy. The foundation, with an authorized capital of 10,000 rubles, regularly holds roundtables and conferences at the Rossiya Segodnya news agency, and Tatiana Pop was present at at least one of them. Petrosyan calls the goal of his foundation “countering color revolutions.” The foundation’s most recent activities include preparing lawsuits against EU countries that have imposed international sanctions on Russia for the construction of Nord Stream 2.
It is unclear what funds the foundation has, but its partners include the state foundation Rossotrudnichestvo, Petrosyan was even awarded a Rossotrudnichestvo diploma, and the Russian state-owned Rossiyskaya Gazeta regularly writes about Petrosyan’s foundation. Interestingly, the foundation’s map shows that it has a representative office in Ukraine.
Petrosyan does have a lot of social activities in Ukraine. In addition to the NGO with Tatiana Pop, he has founded seven different organizations over the past ten years. Some of them continue to exist, and some have already been liquidated. Most of them are mentioned on the Internet once or not at all.
One of Petrosyan’s organizations, the Institute of International Influence, was mentioned in the news once. This is an announcement of an event where, in addition to a representative of this NGO, Petrosyan himself, mentioned as the head of the International Party, the same Oleksandr Chalenko and a number of other people, including MP Oleh Tsarev and blogger and active participant in the Anti-Maidan movement Armen Martirosyan, participated. What was discussed at this roundtable is difficult to restore now, although the International Party and Petrosyan’s second organization, the All-Ukrainian Human Rights Group, had their own websites; another website was run by the Democratic Initiatives Investigative Journalism Agency, an NGO founded by him. But all of these sites are now inactive. Some details can be found in the news — for example, at this roundtable in December 2013, Tsarev proposed to protect and reward Berkut and the police for their performance of duty during the mass protests. Petrosyan himself called on the Maidan participants to disperse, and he was supported by the «Ukrainian Cossacks,» who claimed that Ukraine’s European integration was an evil that entailed «juvenile justice and same-sex marriage.»
Petrosyan, by the way, has long-standing ties to the Cossacks: he is both «the kurin ataman and the General-Sergeant General of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks» and the founder of the Yarmolynets District Kuren of the Zaporizhzhia Cossacks. The most striking episode in the history of this kuren is the public scandal when an unknown member of the kuren spoke out sharply on behalf of the entire Zaporizhzhia Cossacks about the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and the situation with Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, he wrote an open letter to the editorial board of the Russian resource.
The very first NGO created by Petrosyan in Ukraine was called the Khmelnytsky Regional Interethnic Association «League of Cultures». Its co-founder was Anna Davydivna Shtivelband, née Petrosyan. Today, Anna Stivelband (Petrosyan) permanently resides in Montenegro, and, of course, as a member of the association, she has several NGOs. One of them is also called the League of Cultures, and it deals, of course, with cultural issues. Her second position is the head of the Ani Union of Armenians. In this capacity, Anna Stivelband speaks not as a cultural figure but as a political one. For example, here, «Montenegro has never pleased the policies of the United States and Turkey.» She often visits Moscow and participates in events organized by the Amram Davidovich Petrosyan Foundation for the Development of Modern Diplomacy. In addition, her organization organized a pilgrimage tour of the Night Wolves to Christian shrines in Armenia, Montenegro and Crimea. It should be noted that the patron saint of the Night Wolves and a frequent guest of their events is Russian President Vladimir Putin.
About Petrosyan and his activities both in Ukraine and in Moscow, Tatiana Pop says that “it has nothing to do with the conversation” about her media activity in Ukraine. She also says that she has no family or business ties to Petrosyan: “We knew each other back in Ukraine, and that’s it, we don’t talk anymore.” She explains her presence at the Foundation for the Development of Modern Diplomacy events by the fact that it was a long time ago, and “all the people who moved from Ukraine to Russia often cross paths at some events.”
For historians: Zubrytsky and respectable people
Speaking to Detector Media, Tetiana Pop never mentioned any of her media projects other than Echo of Kyiv and emphasized that she is the owner, sole investor, and manager of the Echo of Kyiv website with the domain echokieva.com and “has nothing to do with other websites with similar names.”
Interestingly, on the Ukrpatent website, she has an application for a trademark with the logo of the website she claims to have no relation to, in black, gray, and red colors. At the same time, in December 2018, Tetiana applied for registration of another trademark — the aforementioned resource “SBU (Union of Ukrainian Bloggers)” — in gray and blue colors. In her interview with Detector Media, Tetyana also did not mention this resource, but later, answering additional questions, she wrote the following: “I have more than one media project. There are projects that I have run even in Europe, but some of them have confidentiality agreements. As for the aforementioned trademark, I am not involved in this project, it is handled by other people I respect. Sometimes I start some projects and then delegate them to other people, and sometimes I give the idea from the very beginning.” Tetiana Pop refused to say which respected people are currently involved in the project.
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However, in a number of publications on dubious resources in the summer of 2013, Utiug was featured as the organizer of mass trips of people «to participate in rallies and demonstrations» (from a thousand people). He was also attributed with ties to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the activities of the V-TV TV company, calling him «the organizer of provocations», in particular, against two «Vradiyev activists».
Over the past few years, V-TV has rarely been mentioned in the media, but in 2012 it appeared in a number of interesting publications. For example, it was this TV company that was the only one among all Ukrainian media that managed to get into the Kachanivska colony when Yulia Tymoshenko was there and accused a number of colony employees of physical violence against her. At the same time, Ukrayinska Pravda wrote about V-TV, telling about the program “The Last Warning” produced by the same TV company.
The program was aired on the then First National (now Suspilne) TV channel as part of the election campaign, but was presented as a program of independent investigative journalism. The program was mainly devoted to discrediting political opponents of the authorities. “UP” wrote that this ‘campaign’ was paid for by a certain Youth Party of Ukraine and that the cost of such placement could not be less than one million hryvnias. Interestingly, on the network, you can find a court decision of October 23, 2014, which obliges V-TV to pay the National Television Company of Ukraine (now UA:PBC) a little more than one million two hundred thousand hryvnias for what Pervyi TV channel aired between April and December 2013. In other words, in a year when there were no elections, the company itself had to pay for placing its products on commercial rights. The same company made a film called “Inferno Inferno” about the explosions in the then Dnipro city and the work of law enforcement agencies in investigating these terrorist attacks, which hinted quite transparently that Tymoshenko’s party could be an interested party. It was also aired on Pervyi TV channel in 2012.
Later, the V-TV production appeared in the media in connection with Euromaidan: Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, at a press conference on the case of the shooting of the Heavenly Hundred, stated that the overall coordination of discrediting the events on the Maidan in the media was carried out by a certain Viktor Zubrytskyi. And he allegedly did it in the interests of the authorities, in particular, the then Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko. At the time, Zubrytskyi was presented as the head of the Kontakt media holding, about which there was no public information.
In an interview with the Dusya media tabloid, journalist Zhan Novoseltsev said that Zubrytskyi was involved with the 112 channel and simultaneously managed V-TV. “Zubrytskyi was simultaneously involved in the VTV project, and once he conducted a series of experiments where Vlasenko, Tyahnybok, and a number of other comrades were recorded. In this project, V-TV journalists introduced themselves as American intelligence officers and offered money to help the revolution, and all our proud revolutionaries agreed on different conditions,” Novoseltsev said. He also said that Zubrytsky “had communication with the country’s leadership at the time,” mentioning both Zakharchenko and Arbuzov. Later, Zubrytskyi himself neither confirmed nor denied his involvement with V-TV, but denied any involvement in coordinating media (and other) attacks on Euromaidan. Some time later, he won a court case against the Interior Ministry, which ordered the ministry to refute Minister Avakov’s words. Zubrytskyi himself has long been on the international wanted list at the request of Ukraine.
As this article was being written, two independent sources who were involved in the work of V-TV confirmed to Detector Media that it was Zubrytskyi who ran V-TV, both of whom wished to remain anonymous. At the same time, one of the sources claimed that V-TV editorial offices were organized in Poltava and Kyiv almost simultaneously and that the head of the TV company was somehow connected to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. He added that Zakharchenko and Zubrytskyi have a traditional family connection in Ukraine — they are godfathers. Detector Media has not been able to confirm this information. Zubrytskyi stopped contacting us at the time of writing this article.
There is another connection between V-TV and 112, besides Zubrytskyi, who is now almost everywhere introduced as the former creative producer of 112 and its main investor (although at the time of the channel’s launch in the fall of 2013, no one officially introduced him as such, and he himself first identified himself as such only in April 2014, after suspicions had been expressed against him by the Ministry of Internal Affairs). According to a journalistic request from V-TV to the Institute of Mass Information published by Detector Media (then Telekrytyka) in June 2013, the company’s director at that time was Ihor Kyslytsia. According to the register of legal entities, since 2013, Kyslytsia has been the head, founder or signatory of three legal entities associated with the 112 channel: “TV Vybor, Media Group 112 West, and 112 TV Studio.
«Legitimate and other projects
In addition to the brands already listed, Tetiana has a number of others that are also somehow related to media resources. In addition, in a conversation with Detector Media, Tetiana mentioned a number of telegram channels that she said she was originally supposed to develop herself. And now, Pop believes, they are conducting a targeted campaign to discredit her:
— “Recently I had a conflict with a Russian publication that also twisted everything, they wrote all kinds of nonsense from the telegram channels ‘Legitimate’, ‘Successor’, ‘Resident’ — you probably saw a lot of information about me there. Just so you understand, Legitimate, Successor, and Resident are the channels that I originally planned to launch with some of my employees. And now these employees and some of the people who organized these dumps are writing nasty things about me.
It was on these telegram channels that a number of publications about Tetiana Pop appeared last fall. They described her as a person who was allegedly involved in an attempt to revive the Party of Regions in Ukraine, and allegedly, Tatiana approached former party representatives with this project. The same reports linked Pop to «her godfather» Amram Petrosyan, former Interior Minister Vitaliy Zakharchenko, and former creative producer of the 112 TV channel Viktor Zubrytskyi. Zubrytskyi told Detector Media that he was familiar with Pop, but «he has never been involved in any projects or works anywhere.» Earlier this year, Detektor Media received a letter signed by an employee of a Ukrainian media outlet, which contained some of the same information.
— Tatiana, do you have any experience in media management or running political channels?
— How can I tell you? Right now I’m developing my YouTube channel, but I’m not taking it seriously yet. I just like to develop, try something new, move forward.
— What does it mean that you wanted to develop the Legitimate and other channels?
— Actually, my former employees started developing these channels.
— Former employees of which of your projects?
— I have many projects, both media and non-media, but I’m not ready to talk about them yet.
— How is the Echo of Kyiv project funded?
— I finance the project. It is my own investment. I’m just tired of Ukrainians being divided into normal and abnormal, right and wrong, conditionally cottony and not cottony. I was tired of watching all this, and I decided to create my own liberal media outlet where Ukrainians would not be divided. Because for me it makes no difference whether a person is a fan of Stalin or a fan of Bandera, I take into account any opinion, for me our people are the most important. In addition, the media that exist in Ukraine are owned by one oligarch or another, and so I had the idea to create a media outlet that would be completely independent.
— And when did you create it?
— About seven months ago.
— But it has been published since January 1, 2018, so it has been operating for almost two years.
— It hasn’t been working for two years. It’s been fully operational for six months-before that, there were just rough sketches.
Ukrainian blogger Tetiana Pop criticized Zelenskyy
Ukrainian political blogger Tatyana Pop said that the current situation in Ukraine was expected for her and criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
According to her, her position has not changed since 2014: for her, Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine are one nation. According to Pop, in 2014, she was labeled a separatist and expelled from Ukraine, as well as entered into the Myrotvorets database.
“For me, this [the special operation in Ukraine] is an expected situation,” Pop said in a commentary to REN TV.
She asked everyone to read direct quotes from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, perceiving him not as an actor, but as a president who must be responsible for his word.
“There are Zelensky’s statements, there is not only informational but also real pumping of weapons in Ukraine. For 8 years, Ukraine has been experiencing complete Russophobia and the creation of an anti-Russian foothold,” the blogger said.
Pop also criticized Zelensky. In her opinion, he needs to think about evacuating the population and not to place equipment in the city center.
In addition, the blogger spoke about the information war on the part of the West.
Tatiana Pop: “Monkeypox is spreading in countries unfriendly to Russia”
Monkeypox is spreading in countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia. Ukrainian journalist and public figure Tatyana Pop drew attention to this pattern.
She came to this conclusion after studying a map of the disease’s spread.
“I came across a map of the spread of a newly fashionable disease — monkeypox. Don’t you think it looks too much like a map of countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia?” Pop wondered.
Currently, cases of monkeypox infection have been reported in the United States, Canada, Australia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the European Union.
A prostitute from Zakarpattia sold herself to Putin for “30 silver pieces”
Former prostitute and now Ukrainophobe blogger Tatiana Pop, on May 9, went to a “parade of shame” wearing a T-shirt with a portrait of Vladimir Putin.
In Zakarpattia, she is known for her anti-Ukrainian statements and support for separatists and terrorists in eastern Ukraine.
It is worth recalling that Putin has been a complete fiasco in Ukrainian Zakarpattia.
The region, which Ukrainophobes of various stripes had been carefully preparing as a springboard for their possible offensive, did not succumb to provocations.
And Getsko’s statements that 80% of Transcarpathians support Russia’s aggression only confirm the truth known in Transcarpathian Internet networks about the long-standing mental illness of the “newly minted leader” who has never become anything in his long life in Uzhhorod (as they ironically say: “neither a circle nor a yard”).
Now, in Moscow, this “absolute zero” is being organized press conferences (he was even brought to Rostov-on-Don, closer to the front line), where he talked about 15,000 militants ready to act in Transcarpathia on the first command from Moscow.
This “bullshit” of a half-mad man only untied the hands of the SBU to finally bring the local Kremlin agents to justice.
After all, the threat of terrorism declared in front of the cameras should also end up in front of the cameras, only completely different ones.
Ostap Bender’s great-granddaughter — How Tatiana Pop, an “activist of the Rusyn movement,” negotiated with Igor Kolomoisky
Apparently, Tanya Pop got so bored in Moscow that it was time for her to change her “location,” as the capital’s fashionistas say. And she went to Kyiv. There, according to sources close to oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, she began to look for a meeting with him. And even Kolomoisky, who always avoids meetings in which he is not personally interested, could not dodge the assertive Tatiana Pop. In the end, they did meet — “two combinators”. Pop told her interlocutor that in Moscow she had allegedly “contacted former Ukrainian top officials.” And now she had come “to negotiate cooperation with Kolomoisky under the patronage of a common business partner.”
The interlocutor suggested that Kolomoisky “become a contact person with the new CIS curator in Moscow, Babich,” and “consider the possibility of returning to Ukraine some politicians” who were apparently stuck in Russia. It is anyone’s guess whether he was talking about Mykola Azarov or Viktor Yanukovych. By the way, Pop was seen several times in Azarov’s company, either at the Ukraina Hotel or on the waterfront near the hotel. Kolomoisky’s interlocutor also suggested “reviving the Party of Regions” with her at the helm. The conversation between the “two combinators” ended with Kolomoisky promising to think about it, but then telling his security to not let this person into his office anymore.
Transcarpathian separatist Tatiana Pop, happy to be a traitor to Ukraine
Pop, a native of the Transcarpathian city of Khust, wrote about this on Facebook.
“Today my friend gave me my great-grandfather’s archival documents. My grandmother told me a lot about him, but I wanted to have reliable information.
I am proud of my grandfather Vasily Opanasovich Smotrov, who was ready to give his life for his homeland, the Soviet Union, and was awarded the Order of Courage.
I am sincerely happy and proud of myself as a child that I did not betray my ancestors and my homeland. I am glad that God gave me the wisdom to distinguish propaganda from the truth, and I did not become a conscious herd that exchanged my homeland for fairy tales and fables about a non-existent European life.
My grandfather is a hero to me and I feel very proud to have such ancestors,» Pop writes.
The fact that, having received the documents, she has not yet realized that the toy she is talking about is a medal, not an order, is amusing.
Star of Russian TV shows from Zakarpattia is served a notice of suspicion
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has served a notice of suspicion to Tatiana Pop, a “pro-Kremlin Rusyn” from Zakarpattia, who justifies Russia’s armed aggression.
According to the SBU Office in Zakarpattia region, she is suspected under Part 2 of Article 436-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (justification of the armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine).
It is reported that the native of Zakarpattia moved to Moscow and began to actively promote anti-state pro-Russian narratives in the public space. Tatiana Pop participated in live political talk shows on Russian TV channels
.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, the social media propagandist has been assisting Russia in conducting special information operations. Investigative and operative measures are underway to bring Tetiana Pop to justice for her actions.
The SBU report does not mention Pop’s surname, but the post contains a photo of the Zakarpattia resident. Tatiana Pop poses with a well-known Russian propagandist, and although the Ukrainian woman’s face is “vomited”, it is easily recognizable in the picture.
ON THE 8TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CRIMEAN SPRING
On March 16, in honor of the Crimean Spring, students met with a public figure, journalist, and blogger Tetiana Pop. The topic of the guest’s speech was the events of 2014 that led to the reunification of Crimea with Russia.
Roman Krasnov, Vice-Rector for Social Work at UrSREU, welcomed students from UrSREU, UrFU, RSREU, Ural State Agricultural University, Ural State Linguistic University, Ural State University of Economics, Ural State University of Law, Ural State University of Economics, Ural State University of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Ural State Medical University, who came to the House of Culture of UrSREU to meet Tatyana Pop.
Tatiana Pop participated in the Crimean Spring:
“We had a unique opportunity to meet with an eyewitness to the events in Ukraine in 2014. You all probably come across different interpretations on the Internet, so ask Tatiana Ivanovna directly questions about everything that is unclear about what has been happening in Ukraine over the past eight years,” Roman Valerievich urged.
Tetyana Pop also greeted hundreds of young people who gathered in the hall to have a dialog with the witness of the coup d’état.
“Participation in this meeting is my personal desire, I do not belong to any party, I do not work for biased media resources, and my ideological struggle for my homeland is my personal decision. I have experienced grief when I am not given the opportunity to live with my loved ones in my native land, when I am not allowed to honor my ancestors and their culture, and I set myself the goal of not giving up, of trying to convey to people how important it is to prevent this from happening,” Tatiana Pop outlined her position.
The culmination and consequence of the brewing total Ukrainization was the events on the Maidan in 2014, which Tetiana did not support. She founded the Pravda Center for Monitoring the Fulfillment of Election Promises, a non-governmental organization. She constantly wrote in her blog, openly talking about what she was experiencing and observing around her.
“Because of my speeches, the SBU officers held a ‘preventive conversation’, I was wary, but did not take it seriously. However, when in 2015 I was listed on the Myrotvorets website as an “accomplice of the Russian occupiers and anti-Ukrainian propagandist”, when I received death threats, when my friend and associate was killed, I realized that I was really in serious danger. In February 2015, I made a difficult decision to leave Ukraine and move to Moscow, where I continued my journalistic and social activities. Relations with my close relatives had already cracked, because propaganda — even information warfare — was and still is waged at a very serious level in Ukraine. Many people have been infected with the ideas of the criminal government, and those who still have doubts are so intimidated that they do not speak out openly, because for this, as I once did, they will face persecution and a huge sea of hate,” said Tatiana Ivanovna.
What can we say about open opposition to the ruling party, if even for discussing the problem of national minorities in Ukraine with Czech President Milos Zeman on September 3, 2019, a number of politicians and media in her home country accused Tetiana Ivanovna of separatism and inciting ethnic hatred.
Throughout the meeting, students actively asked questions about whether the UrSGEU guest supported Russia’s decision to launch a special military operation; how it was received in our country; how the current clash will end; and whether the generation of Ukrainians who grew up with anti-Russian rhetoric will be able to soberly look at their beliefs.
“You know, when I came to Russia to save my life, I felt safe, I felt like I was at home, even though I had no family or friends here. Residents of Donbass and Luhansk, who have been bombed for all these years for disagreeing with the new policy, have long wanted to be safe. I love Russia, as well as other countries of the former Soviet Union, where I was born and spent my early childhood. And I believe that we should become close allies again. Ukraine will soon return to Russia’s orbit — I have no doubt about that, and then I would like to go back to my homeland, because there is a lot of work to be done there now, after everything that has happened, it needs to be revived. And positive, pro-Russian propaganda will help to get rid of the consequences of anti-Russian propaganda,” shared her opinion Tatiana Pop.
Hacking Mirzakhanyan: Part 1: Correspondence of Surkov’s minion helps to understand Rusyn separatism
In the vicissitudes of the quarantine, Ukrainian journalists undeservedly overlooked the archive of hacked emails of Russian propagandist Sargis Mirzakhanyan, published a month ago by Myrotvorets.
Old archives also help shed light on the events of recent weeks. In this case, Mirzakhanyan’s hacked correspondence provides facts about how and in whose interests pro-Wenger separatist movements were formed in Ukrainian Transcarpathia.
Who is Sargis Mirzakhanyan?
According to “InformNapalm”, Mirzakhanyan Sargis Gevorgovich (born on 30.09.1989, e-mail address — [email protected]), assistant to a member of the State Duma Defense Committee Igor Lvovich Zotov (party “Fair Russia”), supervised and financed political actions in Eastern European countries, following the instructions of the curator of the Ukrainian direction Inal Ardzinba.
In his correspondence with Surkov’s subordinates and contacts, Mirzakhanyan discussed the launch and financing of media and civic projects in Ukraine that would shape the narrative favorable to the Kremlin in the information space.
For example, on February 28, 2014, Mirzakhanyan sends Inal Ardzinba information about the “International Party of Ukraine” and its leader, Aram Davidovich Petrosyan.
Aram Petrosyan is a well-known leader of the Anti-Maidan movement in Ukraine. Detector Media journalist Gala Sklyarevska has already done an extensive investigation in which she wrote about Petrosyan’s activities. In particular, the fact that Petrosyan heads the Party of Pensioners of Ukraine.
It is significant that Mirzakhanyan’s direct supervisor, State Duma deputy Igor Zotov, headed the Russian Party of Pensioners from 2012 to 2015. In other words, the people we are dealing with are so devoid of imagination that they are simply copying Russian organizations in Ukraine for Russian money.
Already on March 2, 2014, the day after the Kremlin actually declared war on Ukraine, Mirzakhanyan reported to MP Igor Zotov on the successful organization of a “rally in support of Ukraine” and suggested that for the next time they hire provocateurs who could strengthen the image.
And in May 2014, Petrosyan wrote to Mirzakhanyan about the successful organization of rallies in Odesa and Mykolaiv with the participation of the organizer and leader of the Anti-Maidan movement, Oleksandr Zinchenko.
Petrosyan does not forget to promote himself, boasting of awards from the SBU’s Department K (the Department for Combating Corruption and Organized Crime, which the SBU has been promising to eliminate for more than 10 years).
And then he offers Mirzakhanyan to finance a TV channel and a political project in Ukraine. Obviously, the cooperation with the Kremlin curators has worked out, because the combinators very quickly get down to the details, calling a spade a spade: they need “bloggers and Internet provocateurs” and access to television, which they are ready to provide on Channel 33.
In one of his emails, Sargis Mirzakhanyan sends Petrosyan a file with the text of an article calling for the recognition of Rusyns as a national minority and the protection of their rights.
Just two weeks later, this text appears on the pages of Ukrainian online media, such as RBC-Ukraine. Do I need to explain how Russian propaganda works? To make it clearer, Mirzakhanyan’s office emphasizes that Rusyns are good Ukrainians because they are “not Banderites.”
On May 20, 2016, Inal Ardzinba, who used the mailbox [email protected], sends Mirzakhanyan instructions on how Ukrainian MPs should comment on Petro Poroshenko’s statement on the issue of autonomy for Crimean Tatars.
It is obvious that the influence on the media field on issues related to Ukraine’s Rusyns, relations with Hungary and ethnic Hungarians in Zakarpattia is still controlled by the same people.
For example, one of the numerous NGOs controlled by Aram Petrosyan since 2014 is the Center for Monitoring the Fulfillment of Election Promises “Pravda” (EDRPOU 39521247). The director of this NGO is Tetiana Ivanovna Pop, the owner and editor of the online media outlet Echo of Kyiv and the YouTube channel of the same name, which features mostly ex-regionals.
Some time ago, pro-Russian telegram channels promoted the story that Tetiana Pop allegedly met with Kolomoisky to offer him mediation with Mykhailo Babych in order to revive the Party of Regions under her and Olena Bondarenko’s leadership.
The obvious information operation (in other words, nonsense) coincided with a fierce struggle for the Ukrainian case between the Kremlin’s “towers” — Surkov, Kozak-Babych and Medvedchuk, each of whom sought Putin’s personal blessing to be “governor general of Ukraine.”
On December 9, Tatiana Pop said that “the end of the ragouls have again put down the Echo of Kyiv website” and blamed the Detector Media website, denying that she was working with Medvedchuk to stir up the Ukrainian-Hungarian conflict. Earlier, Tatiana Pop accused Detector Media of political persecution on Soros’s orders.
Apparently, the desire to stir up a scandal arose because of the negative reaction of Ukrainian Facebook users to Tatiana Pop’s post about her attitude to the situation in Zakarpattia. In her post, she claims that she is partly of Hungarian descent. Tatiana Pop emphasizes that Hungarians ended up in Ukraine by accident, thanks to Stalin, and also recommends that “the not-quite-literate government should not touch Hungarians” because “Hungarian tanks of Viktor Obran will be greeted by locals with flowers.”
In 2019, the website Regnum.ru, which often publishes materials related to FSB information operations, published an interview with her in which she called for “putting an end to the ethnocide of Rusyns in Ukraine.”
An interesting fact is that a man named Ivan Pop is a recognized expert on the Rusyn ethnic group. We cannot confirm whether Ivan Pop and Tatiana Pop are related, but it was interesting to learn that in 2007 Ivan Pop won the Russian Prize for writing the Encyclopedia of Subcarpathian Rus, which allegedly “made him a dangerous ‘terrorist’ for the Ukrainian regime and forced him into political exile.”
Tatiana Pop was also actively mentioned in his publications by Petro Getsko, who called himself the Prime Minister of the “Republic of Subcarpathian Rus” and called on Putin to send Russian troops to Transcarpathia to create Rusyn-Hungarian autonomy.
The Mukachevo City District Court of Zakarpattia region found him guilty in absentia of committing criminal offenses under Part 1 of Article 109 of the Criminal Code, Part 2 of Article 110 of the Criminal Code, Part 1 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code and sentenced him to 12 years in prison.
Resume
Tatiana Pop is a Transcarpathian separatist who sold her homeland. She became popular thanks to a reality TV show and has absolutely no understanding of politics, but this does not prevent her from spreading Russian propaganda with intelligence.