Mezha
Ukrainian news, owner with documented pro-Russian ties
Background
Mezha was created in July 2023 when Petro Terentiev broke from his co-founder Kateryna Roshuk and the rest of the Bukvy editorial team after years of internal conflict. On July 9, 2023, the Bukvy staff moved to a new domain (bukvy.org) under Roshuk; the following day, Terentiev announced the Mezha project using staff members who had sided with him. Terentiev is a controversial figure: Ukrainian media and researchers describe him as a pro-Russian propagandist who publicly praised Vladimir Putin as 'the standard of modern democracy,' said Crimea belongs to Russia, and called the Russia-Ukraine war a 'civil war.' In March 2014, during Russia's seizure of Crimea, he reportedly worked alongside Pablo González Yagüe (the Spanish journalist later publicly identified as Russian military intelligence agent Pavel Rubtsov), reinforcing pro-Russian narratives during the Crimean 'referendum.' He is listed on Ukraine's Myrotvorets Centre database, which targets individuals accused of threatening Ukrainian national security. Despite this ownership background, Mezha's publicly visible articles cover the Russian invasion, corruption, and Ukrainian politics in a manner that does not appear overtly pro-Russian on the surface. No major independent ratings organization (NewsGuard, Media Bias/Fact Check, AllSides) had published a formal reliability score for mezha.net as of mid-2026. A separate Ukrainian outlet, Mezha.Media (mezha.ua), is an IT and technology publication with no connection to Terentiev; it joined the Ukrainska Pravda media group in January 2024.
Sources
- Petro Terentiev – Simple English Wikipedia
- About Bukvy | Ukraine news – #Mezha
- Mezha – Ukraine News (homepage)
- Ground News interest page for mezha.net
- Mezha.Media joins Ukrainska Pravda media group – Detector Media (Ukrainian)
- Trump Administration Secretly Negotiates 28-Point Ukraine Peace Plan | #Mezha
Profile compiled 2026-07-20; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.