On Monday August 9, a tax police investigator from the Crimean directorate of the State Tax Administration issued an order freezing the assets of the main Crimean opposition television and radio company Black Sea, its president, Tetyana Krasykova, has said. She told the Dzerkalo Tyzhnya weekly that the frozen assets included the building housing the editorial and equipment rooms and studios of the television company and the Asol radio station, cars and, as the relevant order reads, "all the assets wherever they are".

"The tax police have been checking the economic activities of the Black Sea Television and Radio Company since the beginning of July. As far as I know, no criminal cases have been opened as a result of this inspection either against senior managers of the television and radio company or into certain legal violations," Krasykova said. "According to the order freezing the assets of the company, this is part of an 'outside' criminal case. The tax police suspect us of being involved in on-paper-only deals inflicting damage of 6.7m hryvnyas to the state and providing false information in tax declarations." Krasykova said that she did not agree with such conclusions and insisted that the deals in question could be easily checked.

"We purchased TV cameras and rented offices for our needs. We rented transmission equipment, for example, mobile television stations, which were rented for telethons. This is true, and we can prove and show this if necessary. We have all the documents, we have all the acts regarding the services provided and we have at our disposal what we purchased. It seems, however, that they do not want to hear us," she said.

The Black Sea Television and Radio Company will appeal against the order freezing its assets and insists that such interference is illegal.

"I can regard this as yet another attempt by the authorities to somehow remove the company from the media market or complicate its business as they have been inspecting us non-stop since the beginning of the year. We are currently being inspected by the tax police, and the directorate for fighting economic crime has already been inspecting us for five months," she said.

However, the Crimean directorate of the State Tax Administration and the tax police have declined to provide information about the matter. The press officer for the tax police, Artur Mazyn, told reporters, quoting his superiors, that "we are not providing any comment on the matter at the present time".

The Black Sea television and radio company is the largest private regional television and radio company in Ukraine. It broadcasts around the clock in Crimea and Sevastopol. Founded by legal entities, it is controlled via affiliated structures by MP Andriy Senchenko, of the opposition Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc.

On August 10, the Tonis television channel appealed to President Viktor Yanukovych to protect it against what it described as raiding.