[1][2][3] The site is publishes daily news in two languages: Russian and Ukrainian, and includes authored articles with analytics on current events in Ukraine and the world via investigations and reports.

[11] Since its launch, Igor Guzhva has positioned Strana.ua as an objective media outlet, which tries to assess the events in the country as honestly and adequately as possible, describing and analyzing them.

[17] Throughout its history, the website has repeatedly alleged attempts by the Ukrainian authorities to put pressure on its editorial policy, fabricated criminal cases against the site's management, and sought protection from international bodies.

In September 2018, it made public materials about how an SSU officer threatened to kill Strana.ua journalist Viacheslav Seleznyov, who had photographed President Petro Poroshenko's villa in the Spanish town of Marbella in May this year.

As the editorial board later found out, the person in question was Oleksandr Haindrava, an employee of the Department for the Protection of National Statehood of the Security Service of Ukraine.

[18] The situation with the Security Service of Ukraine pressure on Strana.ua journalist Viacheslav Seleznyov was included in the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media in November 2018.

[23] On 22 June 2017, Igor Guzhva, together with a man named Anton Filipkovsky, was detained at the Strana.ua editorial office by police and prosecutors under Part 3 Article 189 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (extortion).

Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko said that Guzhva allegedly received 10,000 dollars for not posting on his website compromising information about Radical Party MP Dmytro Lynko, who had reported the incident to the police on 31 March.

[28] On June 24, the Shevchenko District Court of Kyiv chose a measure of restraint for Igor Guzhva in the form of a 2-month arrest with an alternative to post bail of 500,000 hryvnias.

[30] Later, searches were carried out in the editorial office and on the apartments of some of its employees regarding the alleged receipt by Igor Guzhva of a flash drive with classified information from the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine.

On February 1, 2018, the editorial board of Strana.ua published an appeal to President Petro Poroshenko stating that Igor Guzhva had left Ukraine and asked the Austrian authorities for political asylum.

[53] In 2021 IMI stated that Strana.ua was one of the "five most unreliable media sites in Ukraine, often resorting to hate speech and manipulative, distorted headlines.

[53] StopFake also accused Strana.ua of being a "mouthpiece" of the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics "parroting their propaganda for the Ukrainian audience.

"[53] StopFake (in August 2021) also alleged that Strana.ua "not only repeats traditional Russian propaganda tropes, it also publishes stories that inculcate intolerance towards Donbas residents, and freely disseminates the views of Russia’s Foreign Minister that giving Ukrainians who live in the occupied territories Russian passports does not violate any international laws.

In June 2018, speaking on Crimean Tatar TV channel ATR and commenting on Strana's exclusive publication about the so-called “Babchenko execution list” (which provoked a negative reaction from the Security Service of Ukraine), Strana.ua journalist Svitlana Kryukova stated that Strana's position was to cover all socially significant events, regardless of the authorities' attitude to it.

[62] The presidential decree stipulated the blocking of the Strana.ua website and the obligation of providers to close access to the site, as well as to the pages of the publication on social networks.

The National Commission for State Regulation in the Sphere of Communication and Information ordered all providers in Ukraine to block any mirrors of the Internet publication.

[64] Igor Guzhva issued a statement in which he called the blocking of Strana.ua a legal uproar and extrajudicial punishment, as well as stated that sanctions against him and the Strana.ua publishing companies would not stop the work of the publication.

The Council of Europe platform for the promotion of protection of journalism and safety of journalists has called the decision on sanctions and blocking of Strana.ua a threat to the media freedom in Ukraine.

[65] The European Federation of Journalists issued a statement saying that the imposed sanctions are “a threat to the press, media freedom and pluralism in the country”.

[67] In November 2021, the Supreme Court of Ukraine accepted for consideration Igor Guzhva's lawsuit challenging President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's decree imposing sanctions against him.

It stressed that the war, which had caused huge casualties and suffering, was launched by the Russian leadership based on false assumptions.

The first is to perceive it only as a respite before a new war, for which both countries will be preparing intensively, fueling their thirst for revenge and telling popular stories about “we must be the new Israel”.

But this talk may not lead them to become the “new Israel”, but to repeat the path of the African countries, which plunged into the abyss of wars, coups, revolts, terror and genocide for decades after the collapse of their colonial empires.

Although it lies on the surface: Bringing the standard of living and quality of life of the Russian population to the level of the most developed countries in Europe.

At the same time, Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Oleksandr Tkachenko demanded that the organizers of the award exclude the journalist from the list of nominees, which was done.

[72] The long-standing “club of fans” of Strana, led by the entire Minister of Culture Tkachenko, has showered the Foundation with collective denunciations with ultimatums.