YouTube bans prominent Zelensky critic
YouTube has removed the 2-million-subscriber account of exiled Ukrainian Journalist of the Year Diana Panchenko, a fierce critic of Vladimir Zelensky.
In 2023, Kiev imposed personal sanctions on the former TV presenter and started criminal proceedings against her for her alleged anti-Ukrainian reporting.
Panchenko has long criticized Zelensky for rampant corruption in Ukraine, as well as his clampdown on freedom of speech. She has also condemned Kiev’s military actions in Donbass since 2014, and later accused the former actor of dragging the nation into a “forever war.”
“Diana Panchenko @Panchenko_X is one of the most famous women in Ukraine, former Journalist of the Year and opponent of the grossly corrupt Zelensky regime,” Irish journalist Chay Bowes wrote on X on Friday.
“YouTube just banned her and erased her account. She had 2 million followers,” he wrote. “The most dangerous weapon is Truth.”
Panchenko’s YouTube account is deleted as of the time of writing, but an archived snapshot shows that at least 2.09 million people subscribed to her channel as of last month.
Youtube, which is owned by Google, has extensively cracked down on and banned Russian media channels, as well as large pro-Moscow private accounts since the escalation of the Ukraine conflict.
Panchenko has also routinely criticized Kiev’s crackdown on alternative narratives in Ukraine.
Soon after the escalation of the conflict in 2022, Zelensky shut down multiple television channels associated with his political opposition and consolidated some of the country’s largest networks into a single 24/7 broadcast called the United News TV Telemarathon.
