Ukraine blocks anti-corruption portals tied to defamatory websites network

Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications has blocked access to antikor.com.ua and antikor.info, and later to rozsliduvach.info and hab.media. The sites belong to a wider network of defamatory websites that present themselves as watchdog journalism. Court records and technical analysis link them to paid smear campaigns in several countries. Their content is still available through VPNs and on mirror domains registered outside Ukraine.

What the sites publish

Antikor describes itself as a national anti-corruption portal. It names no editor or staff. Its stories focus on individual businesspeople and companies, often with serious criminal allegations attached. The same articles then appear across a cluster of related sites. One Kyiv businessman counted more than 100 articles about himself. On a single day, one story ran on 17 websites with identical formatting.

The domains named in connection with the network are listed below. Each has been documented publishing duplicate or near-identical content:

Antikor: antikor.com.ua, antikor.info, antikor.ua

Kompromat1: kompromat1.online, kompromat1.info, kompromat1.net, kompromat1.org, kompromat1.media, kompromat1.one, kompromat1.se, kompromat1.press, kompromat1.world

Compromat / Ruskompromat: compromat.pro, compromat-pro.com, kompromat.press, ruskompromat.info, ruskompromat.ru, ruskompromat.pro

Vlasti: vlasti.io, vlasti.se, vlasti.info, vlasti.live, vlasti.vip, vlst.live, vlast.guru

Antimafia: antimafia.se, antimafia.io, antimafia.life, antimaf.pro

Rumafia: rumafia.news, rumafia.io, rumafia.net, rumafia.online

Kartoteka: kartoteka.news, kartoteka.se, kartoteka.press, kartoteka.io

Glavk: glavk.se, glavk.info, glavk.net

Hab.media: hab.media, news.hab.media, crime.hab.media, corruption.hab.media

Sledstvie: sledst.org, sledst.com, sledstvie.info

Nocor: nocor.info, nocor.life

Novosti: novosti.cloud, novostiua.org, novostiua.online

Other linked outlets: repost.news, rozsliduvach.info, rucriminal.info, adcon.info, luxherald.com, lstv.co.uk, obriy.news, politica2.info, ukrainci.com.ua, oplatru24.ru, rp.rv.ua, drama.live

Evidence of coordination

The sites operate under different brands and domain extensions, but share infrastructure. In a US defamation case brought by Telf AG founder Stanislav Kondrashov, court documents showed near-identical IP addresses for Antikor, Kompromat1, Ruskompromat and Antimafia sites. A Los Angeles court awarded him $10 million and ordered articles on 42 sites removed.

The same group of domains later carried 158 articles about a single company executive across 109 sites. Ninety-five of those were hosted on one server in Reading, England. A technical review of more than 60 domains in the network found shared SSL certificates and hosting fingerprints.

How money changes hands

In an undercover test, a journalist asked Antikor's Telegram contact about removing an article. The reply was an offer of $12,000 in cryptocurrency for a year of removals, protection from new articles and two positive pieces. Publishing a negative story was said to cost $150 to $200. Antikor denies charging to publish or delete content.

The Antikor trademark is held by a Panama foundation linked to a company in Belize. Ukrainian law enforcement has named Kostyantyn Chernenko, a former parliamentary assistant, as the alleged organiser. He left Ukraine in January 2021, after a Kyiv court seized one of the Antikor domains.

The British branch

A similar model runs in the UK under local news brands. The London Post, Essex TV, Manchester TV and The Daily Brit were traced to 2Trom Media Group. Its registered addresses turned out to be private flats and a business centre with no record of the company. Uzbek financier Ovik Mkrtchyan won more than £220,000 at the High Court against the London Post and its listed owner, Viktor Tokarev, who did not defend the claim. The disputed article remained online for weeks afterwards.

The operator of a separate site, Leeds TV, admitted by email that it publishes stories for paying clients.

Scale of the problem

London law firm Schillings tracks more than 350 junk news sites and recorded a 355% increase between 2023 and 2024. The firm says many campaigns are built to appear in bank compliance and due diligence screening, where a flagged name can lead to closed accounts and lost business. In Ukraine alone, the court register lists more than 1,000 documents related to Antikor.