Mirotvorets: Ukraine's mysterious website of enemies

By Matthew Parish

Thursday 12 November 2026

There is a peculiar website in Ukraine that claims to identify the enemies of the Ukrainian state, publishes their personal details and sometimes announces their deaths. It is called Myrotvorets, usually rendered in English as Mirotvorets, meaning ‘Peacemaker’. The name is an irony, whether intentional or otherwise, because the website has become one of the most controversial institutions in Ukraine's information war against Russia. It occupies an ambiguous territory between investigative journalism, intelligence gathering, political activism and the public denunciation of individuals suspected of disloyalty. Nobody outside its inner circle can say with certainty who exercises ultimate control over it, who finances its operations or precisely what relationship it maintains with Ukraine's intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

The website presents itself as a non-governmental organisation dedicated to identifying evidence of crimes against Ukrainian national security, international peace and humanity. Its principal database, somewhat ominously called Chystylyshche, or ‘Purgatory’, contains records concerning Russian military personnel, suspected collaborators, separatists, politicians, journalists and numerous other individuals whom its administrators consider to have acted against Ukraine's interests. Some entries contain photographs, dates of birth, addresses, telephone numbers, passport details and allegations of criminal wrongdoing. The website invites contributions from members of the public and explicitly contemplates the use of its information by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

For a country fighting an existential war against a powerful aggressor, the attraction of such an institution is not difficult to understand. Russia has conducted military operations against Ukraine since 2014, occupying Crimea, supporting separatist movements in Donbas and eventually launching its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Identifying Russian officers, collaborators and individuals involved in war crimes is a legitimate national security objective. Ukraine's security services cannot possibly investigate every suspicious individual without assistance from civilians, journalists and the remarkable network of volunteers who have become integral to the Ukrainian war effort.

Nevertheless, the legitimacy of collecting evidence against suspected criminals does not resolve the question of what should be done with that evidence. There is a substantial difference between transmitting information confidentially to competent investigative authorities and publishing allegations against an individual on a website that may expose them to harassment, threats or violence. This distinction lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding Mirotvorets, and it raises questions about the relationship between patriotism and the rule of law that will remain important long after the present war has ended.

The mysterious founders

Mirotvorets emerged in 2014, during the chaotic early months of Russia's intervention in eastern Ukraine. One of the personalities associated with its creation was Georgiy Tuka, a volunteer activist who subsequently became governor of Luhansk Oblast and then a deputy minister responsible for occupied territories. Tuka publicly introduced the project as a database identifying terrorists and traitors, emphasising its potential value to intelligence agencies, military formations and border guards. The project belonged to a wider phenomenon of volunteer intelligence gathering, in which Ukrainian civilians attempted to compensate for weaknesses in the state's security institutions.

Another prominent figure was Anton Herashchenko, a former Ukrainian parliamentarian and adviser to Interior Minister Arsen Avakov who subsequently served as a deputy interior minister. Herashchenko was an enthusiastic public supporter of the project, and various investigations have associated him with its early establishment. Yet the precise extent of his managerial responsibility remains disputed. In 2016, when Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty asked whether Mirotvorets was his creation, he declined to acknowledge ownership, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy subsequently recounted that Herashchenko had told him he had previously worked with the project but had left it.

An even more enigmatic personality is a man using the name Roman Zaitsev, who has been publicly identified as the director of the Mirotvorets Centre. Zaitsev has claimed connections with Ukraine's security institutions and has described the project's personnel as including individuals employed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine, the SBU. In a 2015 interview, he spoke of cooperation between Mirotvorets and state institutions. However, the SBU formally denied involvement in establishing or operating the website, and even disputed the claimed employment history of the individual calling himself Zaitsev. His identity and precise institutional affiliations have never been satisfactorily established in public.

The uncertainty does not end there. An investigation by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2016 identified connections between Mirotvorets and a Kyiv public relations business associated with Ihor Savchuk. A further Ukrainian investigation published by Mezha in June 2026 explored the roles of Savchuk, fellow volunteer Yaroslav Bondarenko and blogger Myroslav Oleshko, who had formerly acted as a public representative of the project. That investigation described internal disagreements and suggested that the organisation's personnel and political relationships had changed over time, although it did not establish who ultimately controlled the website or its funding.

A curious feature of Mirotvorets is that its website displays geographical references to Langley, Virginia, where the American Central Intelligence Agency has its headquarters, and Warsaw, Poland. These references have encouraged speculation that the website is operated or financed by American or other Western intelligence services. There is no reliable public evidence substantiating such claims. Technical investigations published in October 2026 identified commercial network services associated with the site's infrastructure, including Cloudflare, but emphasised that internet registration and hosting arrangements do not reveal who controls the underlying organisation.

This produces an unusual institutional arrangement. Mirotvorets publicly claims the authority of an organisation assisting the state in defending national security, while denying that it is itself a state institution. The distinction is important because state bodies are subject to legal obligations concerning evidence, criminal procedure, the protection of personal information and institutional accountability. A private organisation can claim to be doing the work of the state without necessarily accepting the constraints that would ordinarily accompany the exercise of public authority.

The scandal involving journalists

The first major international controversy surrounding Mirotvorets arose in May 2016, when hackers announced that they had obtained information from the administrative systems of the Russian-backed separatist authorities in eastern Ukraine. The information included records of journalists who had applied for accreditation to report from separatist-controlled territory. Mirotvorets published a database containing information about more than 7,000 individuals, including 4,508 Ukrainian and foreign journalists and media workers, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The problem was that obtaining accreditation from a separatist administration did not necessarily constitute evidence of sympathy with separatism. International journalists covering conflicts routinely obtain permissions from whatever military or political authorities control the territory they need to enter. A reporter travelling to Donetsk in 2016 might have needed accreditation from the separatist authorities merely to interview civilians, investigate abuses or document the conditions in which people were living. Indeed, those authorities might have detained or expelled journalists who attempted to report without their permission.

Mirotvorets nevertheless presented the accreditation records in a manner that associated journalists with cooperation with terrorist organisations. The publication exposed personal information, including contact details, and journalists reported intimidation and threats. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the disclosure, as did representatives of international media organisations. The controversy became particularly serious because it involved journalists who had entered dangerous territory precisely to inform the outside world about the consequences of Russia's intervention.

Ukraine's own parliament recognised the problem. On 13 May 2016, the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on Freedom of Speech and Information Policy declared the disclosure of journalists' personal data unacceptable and emphasised that allegations of collaboration required an appropriate evidential basis. The committee argued that the authorities should protect journalists carrying out legitimate professional work rather than expose them to accusations founded merely upon their presence in occupied territory.

The implications were significant. One of the characteristics distinguishing a democratic society from an authoritarian one is that journalists must be permitted to investigate both sides of a conflict, even when one party is manifestly responsible for aggression. Journalists cannot be required to adopt the government's interpretation of events as a condition of personal safety, nor should they be treated as traitors merely because they speak to people whom the government considers enemies. Such principles are particularly important during wartime, when independent verification of competing military and political claims becomes exceptionally difficult.

The scandal also revealed a broader problem with online denunciation. Once information has been placed in the public domain, it may be copied, reproduced and circulated indefinitely. Even if the original publisher subsequently withdraws the information, the allegations can continue to affect the subject's reputation and security. The practical consequences may therefore outlast the political controversy that produced the original publication.

A database of enemies, or something more sinister?

The most serious allegations concerning Mirotvorets relate to the deaths of individuals whose details appeared on the website. In April 2015, former Ukrainian parliamentarian Oleg Kalashnikov and journalist Oles Buzina were murdered in Kyiv on consecutive days. Both were associated with political positions sympathetic to Russia or hostile to the post-Maidan Ukrainian authorities, and their personal information had appeared on Mirotvorets.

Their murders gave rise to allegations that the website functioned as an assassination list. Russian officials and media subsequently developed this accusation into a broader narrative suggesting that Mirotvorets identified individuals for physical elimination. The organisation's practice of marking certain deceased individuals as ‘liquidated’ added to the controversy, creating an impression that inclusion in the database might constitute something more threatening than public denunciation.

There is, however, an essential evidential distinction between establishing that a murdered person's details appeared on a website and proving that the website's administrators organised, encouraged or facilitated the murder. That distinction was examined by the European Court of Human Rights in Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia. In its decision of 30 November 2022, the Court considered Russian allegations concerning Mirotvorets and concluded that the evidence before it did not establish Ukrainian government control over the site or demonstrate a causal connection between inclusion in the database and the killings invoked by Russia. The Court was assessing the submissions in that particular litigation, not conducting a comprehensive investigation into every activity of the website.

This judicial finding deserves attention because the Russian government's claims concerning Mirotvorets have sometimes been presented as established facts when they are not. There is no demonstrated general mechanism by which the website's administrators select individuals for assassination, nor is there sufficient evidence to describe the entire database as an official Ukrainian government death list. The fact that some individuals listed on Mirotvorets have subsequently died does not, by itself, demonstrate a relationship between the listing and their deaths.

Yet the absence of proof of an assassination programme does not eliminate the legitimate concerns about publishing potentially sensitive personal information. An organisation need not actively order violence for its activities to create risks. Publishing the home address of a controversial journalist, political figure or suspected collaborator may expose that individual to retaliation by people entirely unconnected with the original publisher. The distinction between intending harm and foreseeably increasing the risk of harm is familiar both to lawyers and to anyone considering the responsibilities of investigative journalism.

When public disagreement becomes disloyalty

Over time, Mirotvorets has expanded beyond identifying Russian combatants and suspected collaborators. Its database has included internationally prominent individuals whose activities or public statements were considered hostile to Ukrainian interests. Amongst them have been Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters and American television commentator Tucker Carlson, both of whom have made controversial statements about Russia's war against Ukraine.

Waters was added in 2018 and Carlson in 2023. When Carlson interviewed Vladimir Putin in February 2024, claims circulated that the Ukrainian authorities had responded by placing him on a death list. Those claims were misleading: his entry preceded the interview and there was no evidence that the Ukrainian government had ordered his assassination. Nevertheless, his inclusion demonstrated how far the website had moved from its original purpose of documenting individuals allegedly involved in concrete security offences.

There is an obvious difference between identifying a Russian military officer suspected of ordering attacks on civilians and denouncing a foreign commentator for expressing opinions considered offensive or mistaken. The first may involve evidence relevant to criminal proceedings. The second raises difficult questions about freedom of expression, political pluralism and the rights of individuals outside Ukraine who may express views inconsistent with Ukrainian government policy. An individual can be profoundly mistaken about Russia's war without thereby having committed a criminal offence.

One revealing example concerns investigative journalist Denys Bihus, whose reporting organisation investigated allegations of corruption in Ukrainian defence procurement during Petro Poroshenko's presidency. According to the June 2026 investigation by Mezha, Bihus was added to Mirotvorets after litigation arising from his investigation, with an accusation concerning manipulation of information and the undermining of trust in state institutions. The original judicial ruling against the journalists was subsequently overturned, but the Mirotvorets entry reportedly remained.

Such cases illustrate the danger of allowing politically committed individuals to decide, without transparent oversight, where legitimate dissent ends and disloyalty begins. Corruption investigations may embarrass the Ukrainian state, particularly when they concern military procurement during wartime. Yet the discovery and exposure of corruption can also strengthen the state's defence capabilities by improving accountability and reducing opportunities for the diversion of public resources. Patriotism and criticism of government are not necessarily opposites.

The involvement of the Ukrainian state

The relationship between Mirotvorets and Ukrainian state institutions is perhaps the most difficult issue to resolve. The website has never convincingly established the identity of all its controlling personnel, and its connections with political figures and former security officials raise reasonable questions. At the same time, the available evidence does not justify concluding that it operates under the direct command of the presidential administration, the SBU or a foreign intelligence service.

The United States Department of State, in its 2022 human rights report on Ukraine, described Mirotvorets as reportedly maintaining close relationships with the country's security services. That formulation is significant but qualified. It suggests that the reported connections merit scrutiny without amounting to a verified determination of ownership, funding or command responsibility.

There is also a distinction between an organisation being privately controlled and its information being used by state officials. Ukrainian military personnel and law enforcement officers may consult privately compiled databases for information about suspected collaborators or Russian military personnel. Indeed, research published by Lawfare in April 2024 described interactions between Mirotvorets and Ukrainian volunteer cyber-intelligence operations that obtained information about Russian military personnel and other individuals. It documented instances in which information acquired through cyber operations was subsequently incorporated into Mirotvorets records, including the personal details of children associated with one of the individuals investigated.

This distinction has practical consequences. Intelligence obtained from a private source may provide a legitimate starting point for an investigation, but it cannot automatically acquire evidential reliability merely because it appears in a publicly accessible database. An allegation of collaboration is not equivalent to proof of collaboration, and an accusation published by anonymous individuals is not an adequate substitute for independent investigation.

An incident in November 2026 demonstrates the continuing importance of these questions. Following disturbances outside a Ukrainian National Guard facility near Kyiv, a military commander interviewed by Ukrainska Pravda referred to a serviceman's appearance in the Mirotvorets database when explaining suspicions concerning his previous movements between Ukrainian-controlled territory and Russian-occupied areas. Separately, a 14-year-old boy who participated in the disturbances was reportedly added to the database after allegations that he had interfered with military personnel. These incidents do not establish that the database was used unlawfully, but they demonstrate how its contents can become relevant to real-world military and security decisions, and how even minors may become subjects of public denunciation.

A democratic state should be particularly cautious about permitting accusations published by anonymous private actors to influence decisions concerning individuals' rights. Criminal investigations are supposed to distinguish allegations from evidence, provide suspects with opportunities to contest accusations and impose responsibility on identifiable public officials. Mirotvorets does not offer an equivalent framework of procedural safeguards, notwithstanding the possibility that some of the information contained in its database may be accurate and genuinely valuable.

The international legal controversy

The United Nations has repeatedly expressed concern about Mirotvorets and the protection of personal information in Ukraine. In a human rights monitoring report covering November 2017 to February 2018, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights noted the continued publication of personal data concerning journalists, activists and other individuals, including home addresses and passport information. It also recorded concerns about violations of privacy and the presumption of innocence, and called for effective investigation of the site's activities.

These concerns have not disappeared. A United Nations Human Rights Committee document published on 11 May 2026 recorded information supplied by Ukraine in November 2024 concerning criminal proceedings into the alleged unlawful collection and dissemination of personal information by Mirotvorets. According to Ukraine's submission, the consolidated proceedings were then at the pre-trial investigation stage. The report did not establish criminal responsibility, identify convictions or confirm the status of the investigation in November 2026.

There is a broader jurisprudential issue here. Ukraine's legal order recognises rights to privacy, freedom of expression and the presumption of innocence, and those rights are also protected by international human rights instruments. Wartime circumstances may justify restrictions on individual rights where they are lawful, necessary and proportionate, but they do not abolish the distinction between suspected wrongdoing and established guilt. A state engaged in defending its sovereignty must continue to determine how national security measures can coexist with the rights it has undertaken to respect.

Nor does the responsibility necessarily lie entirely with the government. If a private organisation publishes an individual's personal information without adequate justification, the organisation may bear direct responsibility under applicable law. The state may separately have obligations to investigate alleged unlawful conduct and provide effective remedies. These are distinct legal questions, and neither can be conclusively resolved by the website's declaration that it operates in accordance with Ukrainian legislation.

The paradox of patriotic denunciation

Mirotvorets reflects a larger phenomenon in contemporary Ukraine: the mobilisation of private citizens and institutions to undertake activities formerly regarded as the exclusive province of the state. Volunteer organisations have provided essential humanitarian assistance, purchased military equipment, investigated Russian atrocities and developed extraordinary open-source intelligence capabilities. These activities have contributed significantly to Ukraine's resilience, particularly when formal institutions have lacked resources or struggled with corruption and inefficiency.

Nevertheless, successful volunteer mobilisation produces its own institutional problems. Activities that are valuable when undertaken informally may require increasingly formal accountability as their consequences become more serious. Identifying Russian military units from publicly available photographs is one thing; compiling dossiers on suspected disloyal citizens, publishing sensitive personal details and encouraging public suspicion of individuals whose conduct has never been tested in court is quite another.

The temptation to expand such activities becomes particularly powerful during prolonged conflict. War divides societies between those regarded as defenders of the nation and those suspected of undermining it. People become accustomed to assessing public conduct through the language of loyalty and betrayal. The category of enemy may gradually expand from the soldier carrying a Russian weapon to the civilian suspected of collaboration, then to the journalist accused of spreading propaganda and eventually to individuals whose principal offence is expressing unwelcome political opinions.

The danger is not unique to Ukraine. Many democratic societies have experienced periods in which patriotism has been invoked to justify intrusive surveillance, public blacklisting or the suppression of dissent. The American experience of McCarthyism provides one historical example. Individuals were publicly associated with communist sympathies or alleged disloyalty through procedures that often failed to distinguish reliable evidence from suspicion, personal hostility or political opportunism.

The analogy has limits. Ukraine is confronting an actual foreign invasion, rather than merely debating the influence of an ideological adversary. Russian intelligence operations, political subversion and collaboration are not imaginary threats. Nevertheless, the fundamental question is similar: how can a society protect itself against genuine enemies without allowing the machinery of suspicion to compromise the rights of innocent individuals?

There is also an important distinction between an organisation's declared purposes and its actual effects. Mirotvorets may genuinely assist in identifying people involved in Russian military operations, but some of its publications have also created legitimate concerns about journalistic safety and personal privacy. Both propositions can be true simultaneously. It would be simplistic either to dismiss its entire database as Russian propaganda or to assume that everything appearing there constitutes reliable evidence of wrongdoing.

What should happen to Mirotvorets?

The obvious institutional response would be to separate the functions that Mirotvorets presently combines. Information suggesting involvement in war crimes, espionage or collaboration could be collected and supplied confidentially to competent Ukrainian investigators, subject to procedures governing the provenance, reliability and lawful acquisition of evidence. Public-interest journalism concerning alleged wrongdoing could remain available, provided that allegations were adequately supported, privacy was respected and individuals enjoyed meaningful opportunities to challenge materially inaccurate information.

The indiscriminate publication of personal information is a different matter. Addresses, passport numbers and the identities of children frequently have little legitimate bearing upon the public evaluation of allegations concerning national security. Their publication can create risks without advancing any corresponding investigative objective. In particular, children should not be subjected to permanent public denunciation merely because adults regard their conduct, family associations or political statements as objectionable.

A more transparent governance structure would also address some of the questions surrounding the organisation's legitimacy. The public should be able to establish who holds ultimate editorial responsibility, how significant allegations are reviewed, whether there are conflicts of interest and what procedures exist for correcting or removing inaccurate information. An organisation that makes serious accusations against identifiable individuals necessarily assumes responsibilities extending beyond those of an anonymous internet discussion forum.

Ukraine's authorities must also decide what weight, if any, public institutions should attach to Mirotvorets entries. The appearance of an individual's name in a privately maintained database should never substitute for properly obtained evidence. Where state officials consult such databases, their decisions must remain subject to established legal procedures and individual accountability.

These questions matter not only for those who appear on Mirotvorets but also for Ukraine's international reputation. A country seeking eventual membership of the European Union must demonstrate that national security and democratic accountability can coexist. The effectiveness of Ukraine's defence does not depend upon accepting every practice undertaken in the name of patriotism, and criticism of a private Ukrainian organisation should not be confused with support for Russia's aggression.

Ukraine's future and the rule of law

Mirotvorets is ultimately a product of an extraordinary period in Ukrainian history, when national survival has required extensive cooperation between the state and civil society. Its emergence is understandable against the background of Russian aggression, the weakness of Ukrainian institutions in 2014 and the subsequent development of volunteer intelligence networks. Its controversial activities also expose the difficulties that arise when private actors assume quasi-public functions without corresponding systems of accountability.

The central uncertainty remains unresolved: who ultimately runs Mirotvorets, who pays for it and who decides which individuals should appear in its database? Public investigations have identified a succession of personalities associated with the organisation, but the complete institutional structure remains obscure. There is evidence of relationships between individuals connected to the website and elements of the Ukrainian state, but not convincing public proof that the government directs its operations. That distinction must be preserved both by those who defend the organisation and by those who accuse it of operating as an instrument of state repression.

Ukraine faces the formidable task of constructing a democratic society while fighting a war in which its adversary repeatedly disregards the most elementary principles of international law. This creates an understandable temptation to regard legal safeguards as inconveniences and public denunciation as a necessary instrument of national defence. Yet Ukraine's democratic aspirations depend in part upon maintaining the distinction between lawful investigation and informal punishment, between evidence and accusation, and between genuine collaboration and legitimate disagreement.

A country's ability to identify its enemies is unquestionably important during wartime. Its ability to distinguish those enemies from people who are merely unpopular, mistaken, controversial or inconvenient may prove just as important when peace eventually returns. The continuing controversy surrounding Mirotvorets is therefore not simply an argument about an obscure website and its mysterious administrators. It is a debate about what kind of institutions Ukraine wishes to build, what limits should apply to private power exercised in the name of national security and how a society defending its freedom can preserve the legal principles that give that freedom its meaning.