A visit of an independent journalist from Norway

Ole Dag Kvamme, a well-known independent journalist from Norway, has recently visited the city of Lutsk on an important mission. On behalf of the editorial staff of Journalisten.no, the official publication of the Norwegian Union of Journalists, he was collecting materials for a future publication about the editor-in-chief of Volynska Hazeta / Honored Journalist of Ukraine / Secretary of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), Volodymyr Danyliuk, who voluntarily mobilized into the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) on February 24, 2022, where he remains to this day.

Journalisten.no is a respected professional magazine in Norway, covering the media space not only in this country but also in all Scandinavian countries. It is headed by Roger Aarli-Grøndalen. Since constructive cooperation with the Norwegian Union of Journalists and the NUJU intensified following the recent visit of NUJU President Sergiy Tomilenko to his Norwegian colleagues, the work of journalist Ole Dag Kvamme in Ukraine has become one of the key directions of a large-scale cooperation project.

This time, the colleague, who visited our country for the sixth time, worked with journalists from civilian newsrooms in the capital, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk Regions, and, returning home through Poland, visited the Volyn Region for a few hours.

Since Major Volodymyr Danyliuk, who serves in the communications unit of the West Operational Command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), was currently undergoing medical rehabilitation in the city of Lutsk, the meeting with Ole Dag Kvamme took place in the regional center of Volyn. First of all, there was an interesting conversation with a colleague from the Volynska Hazeta team, which was also joined by veterans of Volyn journalism and freelance authors of the publication. The main topic was the fateful challenges that the creators of the newspaper had to face in the conditions of mobilization into the army of both the editor-in-chief Volodymyr Danyliuk and the designer Mykhailo Trotsiuk. The Norwegian also received information that almost 30 Volyn media workers are currently serving in various units of the Ukrainian Defense Forces.

Then the Norwegian colleague recorded an interview with Volodymyr Danyliuk, focusing mainly on the circumstances of the beginning of the full-scale russian-Ukrainian war, his mobilization to the Lutsk 53^rd Separate Battalion of the then-100^th Separate Brigade of the AFU, the performance of tasks on the Volyn, Bakhmut and Kupiyansk Axes…

Then, the guest from Scandinavia responded to the host party’s offer and visited key places to understand the cause-and-effect relationship between the development of events and the main motivations of Volodymyr Danyliuk and his combat comrades in defense of Ukraine.

First of all, I visited Castle Square (I admired the main tower of the Lubart Castle and compared it with the image on the 200-hryvnia banknote), and near the former NKVD prison, where in June 1941 the “first Soviets” extrajudicially shot thousands of political prisoners, the flower of the Ukrainian nation, before a panicked flight to the East. There is no doubt: if God forbid, the ruscists managed to break through the Ukrainian defenses and invade Volyn in early 2022, they would continue the bloody massacres of Ukrainian patriots according to the tried-and-tested Stalinist-Putin patterns.

And then, at the city cemetery in the village of Harazdzha, Lutsk District, tribute was paid to the Lutsk people who laid down their lives for the freedom and independence of our state on the fronts of the russian-Ukrainian war… These losses are a testament to the courage and indomitability of the Ukrainian army in the sacred defensive war against the relentless russian aggressor.

After the visit, Ole Dag Kvamme noted:

“I am very impressed by the local Ukrainian newspapers that create and disseminate very important news, especially for those territories where people do not have many other sources of information. Some argue that this is a revival of local media, providing information to the local population. At the same time, this is a very challenging situation for many newsrooms, as they lack advertising revenue and have limited financial resources. At the same time, these media do very important work to establish democracy in Ukraine!”

We express our sincere gratitude to Yuliya Ostakh, a 4th-year student of the Faculty of Foreign Philology (specialty “Applied Linguistics”) of the Lesia Ukrainka Volyn National University, for the high-quality translation and excellent communication skills demonstrated during responsible, practical work.

Source: Volynska Hazeta website