UNIAN management takes responsibility for fake opposition statements

  A statement has been issued by the management , staff and main owner of the UNIAN information agency which says that they have agreed on steps to resolve recent problems.  It adds that the members of staff are satisfied with the assurances they have received and the management have taken responsibility for the news which received considerable publicity in the media.

As reported, on 11 February the UNIAN site posted faked statements from the opposition MPs Oleksandra Kuzhel and Serhiy Vlasenko.  The reports were first removed, then reinstated. 

Six editors issued a statement in which they said that they didn’t know who had commissioned the material, but believed that the management was concealing something from them.  They referred then to problems over censorship and pressure back in 2012. 

The editorial team would seem to have withstood this latest apparent attempt to take on commissioned material and / or in other ways compromise the news agency which at least until last year had very high standing in Ukraine.