Forced to Tell the Truth: The Enforcement Service Gave kp.ua Five Days to Retract False Claims About Alona Shevtsova
The State Enforcement Service of Ukraine has initiated enforcement proceedings against Yulav Media LLC, which owns the popular news portal kp.ua.
The chief state enforcement officer of the Shevchenkivskyi District Department of the State Enforcement Service in Kyiv has officially opened enforcement proceedings based on writ of execution No. 761/42266/25. The publication now has only 5 calendar days to comply with the law: to remove personal photographs of Alona Shevtsova, the former co-owner of “Ibox Bank,” and to publish an official retraction on its website under the heading “Retraction.”
According to the enforcement document, kp.ua is required to clearly and publicly acknowledge as false the information it disseminated in May 2025 in articles in Ukrainian and Russian regarding Shevtsova’s alleged “secret billions.” The text of the retraction must explicitly state that all of the journalists’ allegations regarding the BEB accusations, the scheme to launder 5 billion hryvnias through iBox terminals, the use of the company “LEO” for illegal operations, and “collaboration with Russia” are absolute and documented slander.
What Preceded the Enforcement Proceedings: The Tabloid’s Judicial Defeat
The enforcement proceedings were preceded by a complete legal defeat of the media outlet in court. On March 18, 2026, the Shevchenkivskyi District Court of Kyiv fully upheld Alona Shevtsova’s lawsuit seeking protection of her honor, dignity, and business reputation.
The court established two key points that left the publication with no chance of escaping liability:
Violation of the presumption of innocence: A semantic and textual analysis proved that kp.ua presented accusations of serious crimes not as evaluative judgments or journalistic assumptions, but as established facts. At the same time, no court conviction against Shevtsova had ever existed. Under the law (Article 296 of the Civil Code of Ukraine), the tabloid effectively “convicted” the person without a trial.
Theft of personal data: The portal grossly violated Article 308 of the Civil Code by illegally distributing and using the plaintiff’s personal photographs without her consent.
Ironclad alibis: official responses from the SBU and the BEB
The main trump card for Alona Shevtsova’s side in court was official documents from state security and regulatory agencies. Lawyers provided official responses from the Security Service of Ukraine and the Bureau of Economic Security, which confirmed in writing: there are no active criminal proceedings, suspicions, or charges against Alona Shevtsova at the time of the case’s consideration.
All previous cases, which journalists attempted to manipulate, were definitively closed by a ruling of the Holosiivskyi District Court of Kyiv back in July 2025, and the Kyiv Court of Appeals upheld this decision in October of that same year.
The Price of Defamation for the Media
In addition to the mandatory text acknowledging its own lies, which is now enforced by a state enforcement officer, the court also imposed a financial penalty on Yulav Media LLC. The publisher was ordered to pay Alona Shevtsova 5,000 hryvnias in compensation for moral damages, as well as 7,900 hryvnias in court fees.
As noted by the plaintiff’s representatives, this case sets an important precedent for the entire Ukrainian media landscape, clearly indicating that the status of a major news portal does not grant the right to destroy someone’s reputation with impunity or fabricate “proven crimes” for the sake of clicks. Currently, Yulav Media LLC has only a few days left to comply with the State Enforcement Service’s order and remove the defamatory content from its website.
