The owner of a Kherson TV station was sentenced to 12 years for collaboration

The Kherson City Court found 75-year-old Kherson resident Tetyana Kamenska —an Honored Journalist of Ukraine and owner of the “VTV Plus” television channel—guilty in absentia of collaboration. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison with the confiscation of all her property.

This was reported by “IRS-Pivden” , citing the court’s verdict, which established that in the spring of 2022, Kamenska provided her TV channel’s resources to Russian occupiers to disseminate pro-Kremlin propaganda and create a positive media image of representatives of the occupying authorities in the Kherson region.

In particular, she personally interviewed Vladimir Saldo, positioning him as the “legitimate” head of the region. The TV channel’s content, which was also distributed via YouTube, contained elements justifying and denying Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine.

During the trial, witnesses testified that after the start of the full-scale invasion, the TV channel initially operated using archived footage, but by March 2022, it had changed its rhetoric. Footage of Russian troops and military equipment bearing the “Z” symbol disappeared from the reports, and instead, material began to appear that gave the impression that nothing out of the ordinary was happening in occupied Kherson.

According to witnesses, the channel later began airing reports and interviews with representatives of the occupation administration. In the summer of 2022, “VTB Plus” began broadcasting via a Russian satellite and effectively became part of the Russian propaganda apparatus.

The court found Tetiana Kamenska guilty under Part 6 of Article 111-1 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In addition to a 12-year prison sentence, she was barred from holding public office or engaging in journalistic activities for 15 years after serving her sentence.

The court also ordered the confiscation of all her property, including residential buildings, apartments, land plots, a Mazda 3, and 100% of the authorized capital of the private enterprise “VTB Plus Television and Radio Company.”

Recently, the court handed down a third verdict against the former head of the occupation administration, Volodymyr Saldo, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for smuggling out approximately 3,000 metric tons of Ukrainian grain worth nearly 15 million hryvnias.

In November 2023,Saldowas sentenced to 15 years in prison for treason, collaboration, and justifying Russian aggression. In April 2026, he received another 15-year sentence for treason, collaboration, encroachment on Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and publicly justifying Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Андрій Колісніченко