THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
The editor-in-chief of the Vorskla newspaper, Oleksii Pasiuha, spends three days a week in Velyka Pysarivka, a former district center near the front, where the ruins of the newsroom remain.
“We come to deliver newspapers, to collect material for new publications. And we will definitely go to the newsroom to remove another batch of broken glass and other garbage that appears due to regular russian shelling,” Oleksii said in a comment to the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU).
The newspaper, which is 94 years old this year, was located in a large building, part of which belonged to it since the Soviet years and part of which the newsroom rented until recently for various types of commercial activities. Earned funds were enough to publish an independent publication even during a full-scale war. In fact, the newsroom occupied the entire upper floor of the two-story office building. Now, it has been practically destroyed: the windows and doors have been broken, the furniture has been destroyed, and the roof has been seriously damaged.
“Our newsroom survived the russian occupation, survived the first years of the war. Of course, our border Velyka Pysarivka was constantly shelled – by artillery, mines, and missiles, but for a long time, we passed through broken windows and funnels near our building. The real horror began in March 2024. It was the planned destruction of Velyka Pysarivka by russian guided air bombs – and now we don’t know if it makes sense to restore the newsroom because it can be destroyed again. We bought certain materials, but there is no one to do the repairs – all the workers who remained in Velyka Pysarivka are involved in the restoration of housing,” says Oleksii Pasiuha. “We are only happy that we managed to save at least some property and the archive of our newspapers from 1944…”
According to the editor, Velyka Pysarivka is currently largely without electricity; there is practically no internet and mobile communication. In the center, everything was destroyed – the polyclinic, the library, the post office, the court, the prosecutor’s office. But, despite the difficult conditions, the newsroom continues to prepare new issues of the newspaper for its readers. Issues are prepared remotely, from where everybody had to evacuate to. And they communicate with readers during trips to Velyka Pysarivka and in a designated place in the neighboring town – Okhtyrka.
“We have readers not only in Velyka Pysarivka but also in other settlements. They all need a newspaper and reassurance that we haven’t been hacked!” stresses Oleksii Pasiuha.
By destroying newsrooms, occupiers attack communities
Russian aggression caused significant damage to Ukrainian local media, especially in the front-line regions. Numerous newspaper offices were either damaged or completely destroyed as a result of shelling. These attacks not only physically destroy media infrastructure but also create serious obstacles to informing local communities.
Thus, the newspaper Obrii Iziumshchyny, which works in the front-line town of Izium in the Kharkiv Region, was forced to change its editorial premises.
“Our newsroom is located in an old architectural building with a large hall that survived the Second World War… And at the beginning of March 2022, explosions in the premises blew out windows and doors, and the roof was damaged,” says editor-in-chief Kostiantyn Hryhorenko. “During the russian occupation, the invaders lived in our premises for five months. They looted all our property.”
On September 10, 2022, Izium was liberated, and Obrii Iziumshchyny released the first issue after a long break a week later. That issue was financed by the State TV and Radio Broadcasting Committee, the one that followed – by the NUJU. For some time, the newspaper was distributed to people for free, along with humanitarian aid. At that time, there was neither a television nor Internet connection in the town. Therefore, they switched to selling newspapers.
Thanks to the energy and expertise of the editor-in-chief and the understanding of the military leadership of Izium, the newsroom obtained a new premise. Currently, three employees work in two editorial rooms. In the editor-in-chief’s office, a private studio is being set up for broadcasts on social networks…
In the town of Orikhiv, Zaporizhzhia Region, the editorial building of the Trudova Slava newspaper was destroyed by the russian invaders. Editor Svitlana Karpenko, standing among the ruins, remembers with pain: “Once this was my workplace….”
“Almost the entire town was destroyed,” says Svitlana. “I miss my house; I miss what I have earned for many years.”
Despite the proximity of Orikhiv to the front line, Svitlana, showing incredible dedication to her work, continues twice a month to deliver printed copies of the newspaper to residents.
Vasyl Myroshnyk, the editor of the Zoria newspaper from Zolochiv, Kharkiv Region, who delivers his newspaper every week to settlements near the russian border, demonstrates no less professional responsibility and human courage. People eagerly read Zoria because, in the absence of power supplies, many of them have practically no other sources of information.
“I’ve already lost my mind; once again, we were sent to the newsroom. I counted to eight, then got lost. Plywood, which was used to cover the windows, was blown away again. I don’t even know if it makes sense to restore something. But everyone around us is rebuilding every time, and we follow suit,” says Myroshnyk, who recently became the main character of the documentary called On The Frontier. The Heroic Story of the Journalist from the Front-Line Newspaper filmed by the NUJU Information Service.
There are often blackouts in the Zolochiv Community, but the editorial team continues to work using a generator provided by the NUJU.
“I am delighted with my team!” says the editor.
Destroying media is a component of destroying Ukrainian culture
However, new and new challenges await this team. Another threat to the work of Zoria was the destruction as a result of the May 23 russian shelling of the Factor Druk and Vivat printing houses, which led to interruptions in the production of local newspapers. This attack had serious consequences: seven were killed, and at least 16 were wounded.
The coordinator of the NUJU Journalists’ Solidarity Center (JSC) and well-known Kharkiv journalist, Hanna Chernenko, is convinced that the destruction of the printing house is another act of vandalism by the russian military against the intellectual, spiritual and cultural heritage of Ukraine.
“The fact that the destruction of the printing house was not accidental is evidenced by other acts of vandalism, such as the destruction of the museum of the famous Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda in a targeted attack,” says Hanna Chernenko. “I cannot characterize the shelling of the Skovoroda museum in any other way but with its being intentional. On May 6, 2022, the Kh-35 missile was fired at the national museum complex. In their propaganda, the russians lied that a military command post was located there. And we, the journalists, arrive there the next day, we see how the museum rooms have turned into ruins, how the exhibits have turned into ashes… Before the full-scale invasion, we were preparing to go there to make materials about the 300th anniversary of the philosopher’s birth…”
At the beginning of this year, more than 200 objects of cultural heritage were already destroyed or seriously damaged in the Kharkiv Region alone. Even more destruction of buildings in which culture was created and cared for.
As you can see, russian occupiers are destroying not only newsrooms. In Kharkiv, the Postscriptum theater, the Kharkiv Academic Drama Theater, the Radio house, where the newsroom of Public Radio is located, architectural monuments on Sumska Street and Svobody Square, Karazin University, the Derzhprom architectural monument, etc., were hit.
“A few months ago, a film dedicated to the House of the Word [Budynok Slova], the tragedy of Ukrainian writers killed by Soviet terror, was released. This building has already suffered from shelling several times. It still has traces of the “arrivals” of shells in 2022. This year, a new hit was near, and windows were again damaged in a historic residential building. The russians specifically “trained” in the range and power of their modified bombs. People, houses, and our history have become a training ground for such tests,” says Hanna Chernenko.
Last year, several dozens of Kharkiv photographers took part in the UNESCO project: they documented the consequences of strikes on destroyed or damaged cultural monuments of various levels. These are ancient temples, educational institutions, residential buildings, memorial complexes, etc. The project map covered the entire area.
“I filmed the temple in Izium and the Palace of Children’s and Youth Creativity in Kharkiv. It is very important to draw the world’s attention not just to the operational situation but to say what is going on with the monuments now,” Hanna emphasizes.
According to the NUJU, since the beginning of the full-scale russian aggression, the movable and immovable property of dozens of Ukrainian media outlets has been destroyed and looted. In particular, the NUJU received confirmed information about attacks on newsrooms and other objects of the media infrastructure from the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolayiv, Odesa, and Zhytomyr Regions.
The President of the NUJU, Sergiy Tomilenko, emphasizes that the NUJU actively supports the affected newsrooms by providing necessary equipment and emergency financial assistance.
“The key tool for studying the needs and assistance of the media is the network of JSCs, which the NUJU founded in the spring of 2022 and which operates with the support of the International and European Federations of Journalists and UNESCO headquarters. Currently, there are six such Centers, which are located in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv (with a point of presence in Chernivtsi), and the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. The support provided by the Centers is often critical to the survival of local media in the face of russian aggression. Despite all the difficulties, Ukrainian journalists continue their important mission, demonstrating indomitable spirit and dedication to the profession,” notes Sergiy Tomilenko.
NUJU Information Service
Discussion about this post