Deputy editor-in-chief of the Yekaterinburg news agency "Ura.ru" Mikhail Vyugin resigned due to a conflict with Aksana Panova, who heads the site. this Vyugin reported on his Facebook in the form of an open letter to Panova. He explained his dismissal by a lack of trust in Panova and the fact that there was no war for the agency.

According to Vyugin, the cause of the problems around Ura.ru was Panova’s personal ambitions. He stated that when they created Ura.ru together, Panova called him her equal partner, and then betrayed him by selling 51 percent of the agency’s shares in December 2011. Vyugin called the version that Panova went up for sale because Ura.ru was under pressure at that time fictitious - according to him, it followed from the transaction documents that “the new owner of the agency fulfilled all obligations.”

As the deputy editor-in-chief of the agency explained, the conflict over Ura.ru is corporate, and “nothing more.” He explained that he was leaving the agency, among other things, because there is no war around Ura.ru, which Panova is talking about: “Not for freedom of speech (FB users may believe this, but regular readers of 'URA.Ru ' - no), nor for the right to a profession (no one is denied it)."

Vyugin also accused Panova of manipulating Ura.ru journalists: “You, like a spider, weave a web of lies, and the guys get stuck in it. Understate, mislead, intimidate.” In his opinion, Panova does not care about the employees of Ura.ru: as Vyugin said, she refused to make any concessions and save the team because of her reluctance to work with the new owner of the agency. “Something happened to you, and each of us knows what exactly, everyone knows whose personal ambitions led to the destruction of the friendly and daring team,” he turned to Panova.

Acquaintances of Mikhail Vyugin in the comments to the post stated that they called the journalist and made sure that the post was written by him. On the morning of November 29, Aksana Panova said that her Facebook had been hacked the day before by unknown people, who on her behalf “called for a revolution and the murder of Putin .”

Lenta.ru has not yet been able to obtain Panova’s comments. She also has not yet commented on Vyugin’s post on Facebook.

Meanwhile, Panova herself reported today on her Facebook that police officers are “blackmailing” Ura.ru accountant Natalya Popova. According to the editor-in-chief, they demanded that Popova testify against Panova and threatened her and her family with problems. “As the past two months have shown, they cannot put me in prison any other way. They are taking a hostage again,” Panova noted.

The conflict around Ura.ru began in September of this year, when the police came to the agency’s office with searches. In two months, four criminal cases were opened against Ura.ru and Panova: two on charges of fraud, and two on charges of extortion. Panova, in particular, is accused of making a fraudulent transaction to sell Ura.ru shares to the Austrian company BF TEN Holding GmbH. Panova herself says that the authorities and Ural businessmen Alexei Bobrov and Artem Bikov, who are actually behind the Austrian owners, are trying to carry out a “raider takeover” of Ura.ru. She links the pressure on the agency with critical publications against local authorities and the elite.

Deputy editor-in-chief of Ura.ru resigned due to a conflict with Panova