In 2012, he received asylum in the European Union, asserting persecution by Ukrainian law enforcement bodies related to his journalism.
[23] In February 2021, Shariy was accused of treason and incitement to ethnic or racial hatred by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU).
[37] Shariy later claimed that the case was later trumped-up due to his investigation of illegal drug trade, which he alleged was covered up by high rank members of Ukrainian law enforcement.
On 20 June, Shariy gave a press conference about the situation and claimed that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and UBNON ordered the pressure on him.
[40] The following month, Shariy and journalists of the "1+1" TV channel issued several publications alleging the involvement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in covering up illegal casinos in Kyiv.
[40] After being placed on the all-Ukrainian wanted list, Shariy left the country and asked for political asylum in the European Union claiming persecution by the Ukrainian law enforcement for his journalist activities, basing on the 2011 incidents.
[4][6] From 2014 onwards, while living in European Union, Shariy focused on producing video blogs for his YouTube channel, which, among other things carried out debunking misinformation and propaganda in Ukrainian media.
][note 2] In November 2015, Shariy filed a defamation lawsuit against his paternal sister,[56] Elena Manchenko, demanding that she refute the online claim that he is a "pedophile and a thief.
"[57] On 19 January 2016, the court dismissed the claim, stating that according to the Ukrainian legal practise, she is not responsible for public dissemination of her statements by third parties.
The court found Manchenko guilty and demanded to pay Shariy 75,000 euros in compensation and to publicly refute her accusations against the journalist.
[59][60] In February 2017 Shariy sued the Internet publication "Detector Media [uk]" and its journalist Bohdan Lohvynenko to defend his "honor, dignity and business reputation".
On 13 May 2020, the Pechersk district court in Kyiv ordered Poroshenko to publicly refute his comments and pay 1,536 hryvnias to Shariy as compensation for his legal fees.
161 "Violation of the equality of citizens depending on their race, nationality, religious beliefs, disability and other grounds" and published a video with alleged evidence against Shariy, including his statement about the inhabitants of Western Ukraine.
[25] On 4 October 2022, a judge of the National High Court, Santiago Pedraz, concluded that Shariy was no longer living in Spain.
Pedraz details this in a ruling where of an appeal filed by the defense against consideration of the reporter's extradition to Ukraine because he allegedly left Catalonia for Italy.
[26][28] On 5 October 2022, Pedraz agreed to close consideration of the extradition because Ukraine had not presented the demand for Shariy's surrender[clarification needed], nor the "relevant documentation".
[27][26] In March 2024, Shariy alleged that he was the target of an assassination attempt by the SBU, although the Spanish Civil Guard told TASS that they did not have information on the incident.
[4] After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Shariy accused Zelensky and the Ukrainian media of manipulating public opinion in the west.
[76]: 46–47, 57 [78] In the summer of 2020, journalist Sergei Ivanov posted screenshots of Anatoly Shariy's publications from 2010 in which he showed understanding for the extermination of homosexuals and Romani in gas chambers during the Third Reich.
The outlet also underlined how Shariy often propagated pro-Russian fake news and extremely hateful rhetoric against people living in Western Ukraine.
[5] In November 2017, in a Novoye Vremya magazine rating of the personalities by number of readers in the Ukrainian segments of Facebook and Twitter, Shariy got the 12th place with the aggregate audience of 511,000 people.
[84][85] In the same month he was number 3 of the top most popular Ukrainian political bloggers on Facebook according to the rating of Espreso TV.