According to watchdog ‘Detector media’, on August 23, the ‘News Center’ website reported that the Audi car driven by ‘Servant of the People’ MP Oleksandr Trukhin had failed to maintain a safe distance and speed and collided with the Ford car carrying Luciano Luci, the chairperson of the Ukrainian Football Association Referee Committee.

The driver and passengers of the Audi were reportedly intoxicated.

The accident was confirmed by the UFA.

‘On August 3, at 3:45 pm, an accident happened in Darnytskyi district of Kyiv, in which the Ford car with the chairman of the Referee Committee of the Ukrainian Football Association Luciano Luci and his assistant Roman Lyshen was damaged. The car stopped at an intersection, waiting for a green traffic light. At that moment, another car crashed into it’, the statement says, adding that Luci and a car driver underwent emergency surgeries.

It is still unclear if MP Trukhin was driving the car

He fails to respond to text messages and phone calls.

On August 25, journalist Taras Seredych published a photo of a person resembling Trukhin at the scene of the accident.

Dozens of Ukrainian media immediately published the news of the accident, but over the next few days, without explanation, they began to delete or change the publications not to mention Trukhin.

In particular, more than 30 Ukrainian media outlets did so.

Olga Vytak, an editor of the ‘News Center’ website, published screenshots of three letters in which she was  offered money for removing the news.

Sports journalist Kostiantyn Andriyuk reported that websites were offered at least $ 200 for removing the news about Trukhin.

On August 29, Kyiv LIVE TV channel aired a report from the scene of the accident involving Trukhin. The author of the video claims that ‘according to the victims, Trukhin was to blame for the accident’. Trukhin appears in the footage without any comments.

Journalist Oleksiy Bratushchak managed to recover the footage and posted it on Facebook. So far, this is the only video that is publicly available and which proves MP Trukhin was at the scene.

One of the MPs told Radio Free Europe on condition of anonymity that he was trying to find out the circumstances of the accident. His sources in law enforcement said that at the time of the accident Trukhin looked as if he was drunk, but refused to take an alcohol test.

A Radio Free Europe law enforcement source partially confirmed this information. According to the source, Oleksandr Trukhin was driving and then refused to take a blood alcohol test. The source suggested that Trukhin’s case was controlled at the highest level.

It is worth noting that Trukhin is on the list of the Ukrainian delegation traveling to Washington with Volodymyr Zelensky.