THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
From Dnipro, reporters go to the front. There, they publish newspapers for front-line villages, and from there they go on the radio and television airwaves.
Today, the distance between Dnipro, home to a Journalists’ Solidarity Center (JSC), and a Ukrainian city of a million people, and the front line is less than a hundred kilometers. Almost every day, the city is subjected to devastating attacks with missiles, guided bombs, and drones. But it is here that the routes of reporters from Ukraine and the whole world converge at one point; it is here that the JSC of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) works. It coordinates the work of all journalists, provides assistance in critical situations, and helps solve many professional problems. So, with a story about the city and the JSC, we continue a series of publications about the work of journalists in front-line regions and about such an extraordinary phenomenon for modern media during the war as the JSC in Ukraine.
Missiles, guided bombs, and drones are what the sky over Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk Region is filled with
The Dnipropetrovsk Region is now a front-line region. The front has approached the administrative borders of the region; in some places, it is several kilometers, and in some, hundreds of meters. In some sections of the front, the russians are trying to break through to the territory of the Dnipropetrovsk Region itself. So, if a year ago, due to the approach of the front to the region, residents of Pokrovsk and Myrnohrad (Donetsk Region), which are almost 200 kilometers from Dnipro, were evacuated, now the Mezhova Community of the Dnipropetrovsk Region, which is on the border with Donetsk, has actually become a front zone. Novopavlivka, a neighboring village with Mezhova, is practically destroyed by daily attacks by enemy guided bombs and drones. Residents of front-line villages in the Synelnykove District of the Dnipropetrovsk Region are being forcibly evacuated to safer cities.
Even a brief chronicle of the last few months clearly shows what the residents of Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk Region are experiencing today.
- April 4. Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih. 20 people, including nine children killed, and over 60 people injured.
- June 24. Russian ballistic missile strike on the Dnipropetrovsk Region. 21 people killed in Dnipro, over 300 injured. Two people killed in the town of Samar.
- July 19. Most massive missile and drone attack on Pavlohrad. 9 apartment buildings, a private residence, an educational institution, and a fire department damaged.
- July 26. A powerful combined drone strike on Kamiyanske and Dnipro; a ballistic cruise missile and artillery attack on the Nikopol Community. Four people killed. A missile hits a residential building in the regional center.
- July 29. A missile strike on the territory of a medical facility in Kamiyanske. Three people, including a pregnant woman, killed, and 22 injured.
There are no spots in Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk Region untouched by the war, which brings tragedies every day. The cities of Nikopol and Marhanets are in a zone of constant destruction – the occupiers are using the territory of the temporarily occupied Enerhodar, where the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is located, for artillery shelling and drone launches.
The intensity of missile attacks on Dnipro and Kryvyi Rih is only increasing; the sky is filled with enemy drones almost every night. On June 28, the Ukrainian Defense Forces managed to intercept a guided bomb with a Grom-1 jet engine near Dnipro. Energy and industrial enterprises are suffering devastating hits, and drones and missiles are destroying civilian objects.
In these conditions and under such circumstances, journalists in Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk Region work every day, publishing newspapers, preparing television reports, broadcasting on the radio, and in online media. At the same time, it is in Dnipro that foreign journalists from many countries are preparing to go directly to the front line or can edit operational materials, returning from the contact line or directly from the front line.
How journalists work in the city and region
The summer of 2025 for local journalists, as well as for all residents of the region, became the most dangerous since the start of the full-scale war.
On April 17, an enemy UAV hit the house of Dnipro TV journalist Iryna Dmytriyeva. Only by a miracle did the woman and her children manage to survive. But the house was almost completely destroyed.
In the apartment of journalist Daryna Sukhonis, of the media holding Nashe Misto, for the fourth time during the full-scale invasion, glass had to be inserted into the broken windows.
“Honestly, it’s some kind of hell. No words can convey what you feel when it flies near…,” comments Daryna Sukhonis. “The only happiness is that we and the cats are all alive. I give the cats a sedative….”
More than thirty journalists were injured and had their homes destroyed after enemy shelling and flights. The JSC provided assistance to colleagues in all these cases.
Despite everything, the media in the region are working. Besides, Daryna Sukhonis, despite the constant damage to her home, not only did not leave, but also continues to actively work, participates in professional competitions, and recently became one of the winners of the nomination Best Journalistic Work On Military-Patriotic Topics named after Rem Suvorov in the competition organized and conducted by the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization of the NUJU.
The Stepova Zoria newspaper is published, and the Petropavlivka.City online media is operating in the village of Petropavlivka, which is located just a few kilometers from the contact line.
“The editorial staff of local media overcome incredible difficulties to deliver truthful information to people, so we are making every effort to solve problems and help them do their job every day,” says Nataliya Nazarova, the coordinator of the Dnipro JSC of the NUJU.
In the already mentioned Mezhova, which is now less than 20 km from the front, the editorial staff of Mezhivskyi Meridian publishes a newspaper every week and updates its website every day. Recently, while in the village, Luke Gardner, a correspondent for the British newspaper The Guardian, spoke with the newspapermen. The editor of Mezhivskyi Meridian, Yevhen Khrypun, told him that two of his colleagues had left in recent months, leaving him and one other editorial staff member. The British colleague was sincerely surprised and impressed by how such forces can produce a newspaper and make it operational and professional.
“The newspaper has been published since 1930, almost a century. We have not missed a single issue. So even today, no matter how cruel this war is, we cannot afford it. Without any pathos, there is a responsibility to everyone who produced the newspaper before us,” Yevhen Khrypun told a colleague from The Guardian at the time.
In Nikopol, a city where over 110,000 residents lived before the war, and now about 60, today, despite the daily shelling, as twenty years before, the voice of the Nostalzhi 102.4 FM radio persists. The radio station’s broadcasting range is 70 km, and the waves reach the settlements of the Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson Regions. The Pivdenna Zoria newspaper is also published weekly, and several other information sites are operating.
Since the summer of 2022, news program hosts have been talking about shelling, the destruction of the city and district infrastructure, and residential areas every day, day after day. These shelling attacks are being carried out, as already mentioned, from the enemy-occupied Enerhodar and the surrounding areas of the Zaporizhzhia Region, located four to six kilometers from Nikopol. And the front line is thundering with battles very close by, reminding us of how insidious and powerful our enemy is.
For the entire time of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the occupiers, there was only one short “lag” in the work of the radio station, on the night of March 8-9, 2023 – during another russian shelling of the city, shells hit the radio station premises.
“A shell hit the building. The roof was blown away, and where our equipment rooms are located, where the presenters are supposed to work, there was no roof left. If the broadcast equipment could still be repaired, then the installation equipment was destroyed. The expensive cable connecting the transmitter to the antenna was damaged by debris. And it also became clear that if it rains, our equipment will be destroyed,” recalls the head of the radio station Nostalzhi 102.4 FM, Valerii Tereshchenko.
The amount of damage caused by that shelling amounted to UAH 667,000, or almost USD 20,000 – an amount unaffordable for a small provincial newsroom. The NUJU reacted promptly – at the request of the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization and the JSC, it provided emergency support at the expense of the International Federation of Journalists. When our Zaporizhzhia colleagues, the radio operators, learned about the disaster, they gave their backup cable. Without this help, Valerii Tereshchenko emphasizes, it was almost impossible to turn on the radio. Therefore, the voice of Nostalzhi 102.4 FM continued to confidently sound on the radio.
It is worth talking about the JSC in Dnipro separately – its work is noted today by many journalists and media experts.
JSC: security, creative, psychological assistance
The million-strong Dnipro remains a key logistical and coordination JSC for the work of the media, in particular foreign ones. From here, it is convenient to organize trips to the eastern territories close to the front line, to areas suffering from shelling, to show the whole world the consequences of missile attacks, the stories of evacuees, the work of rescuers, doctors, and volunteers.
The JSC is located in the very center of Dnipro. Journalists know that they can always turn here for help in solving technical, security, or any other problems. Here, they will help with contacts, coordination, and advise on all issues, including accreditation from the Ministry of Defense. JSC provides its coworking space for journalists from any publication and any region – it is equipped with laptops, office equipment, uninterrupted internet, a generator, and an EcoFlow charging station. So, you can work even when the power supply is disconnected, which, unfortunately, is a fairly common situation for Ukraine.
Security risks are the main risks for journalists in Ukraine today. So, this is one of the priorities in the work of JSC. Journalists must be maximally protected when performing editorial tasks. In a war of such intensity, this must be protected according to contemporary standards. So, all media workers are well aware that JSC provides certified bulletproof vests, helmets, and first-aid kits for free temporary use. You can also get training on safety and first aid here.
Created in July 2022, the JSC, unfortunately, has quite limited capabilities – only two full-time employees – Nataliya Nazarova and Svitlana Iotova. But all media workers in Dnipro and other cities of the region know that the girls do not work in the 9:00 to 18:00 mode, but completely differently – “call when we can be of use.” They also know that for these ladies, there are no small or big problems – if it needs a solution, it must be found. For example, the film crew of the Dutch television and radio company NOS (Nederlandse Omroep Stichting), which went to the front line on the border of Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk Regions, needed first-aid kits for the entire group and a set of protective equipment on the seventh morning – everything was found and provided.
Polish freelance photojournalist Sebastian Plocharski, who covers the war in Ukraine, wrote for Polish publications Newsweek Polska, oko.press, Gazeta Wyborcza, and filmed documentaries about the war for the BBC, had his helmet’s fastening system and shock-absorbing pads fail during one of his trips to Toretsk, and it stopped staying on his head. JSC responded immediately to the situation and replaced the journalist’s helmet.
“After each rocket attack on the Dnipropetrovsk Region, we first of all find out if everything is okay with the media workers,” says JSC coordinator Nataliya Nazarova. “Unfortunately, disaster does not bypass our colleagues. As a result of the shelling – broken windows, pierced roofs… We respond to each case, support, and, if possible, help everyone.”
The Dnipro JSC also works in conditions of increased risk. Three times, enemy missiles hit literally a block from the House of Journalists.
In general, all the work of the JSCs in Ukraine during the war is a unique phenomenon. The need for such a phenomenon was objective and natural. There had been no such war in the world for many decades on the scale, intensity, and bloodshed. Accordingly, there was no experience in organizing the work of the media under such conditions.
The NUJU took up the problem, initiating the creation of the JSC network. The initiative was implemented in cooperation with the International and European Federations of Journalists, UNESCO, and with the support of the people of Japan, in order to assist media workers working in Ukraine during the war. The first three JSCs were opened in April 2022 in western Ukraine – in Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Lviv. Three months later, the network was replenished with JSCs in Zaporizhzhia and Dnipro, and later a JSC was opened in Kyiv. And after the reorganization, a JSC appeared in front-line Kharkiv, and Lviv and Chernivtsi merged into the united Western Ukrainian JSC. Thus, a network of six JSCs was established throughout Ukraine.
However, today it is already obvious that this experience needs to be scaled up, bringing the work of JSCs to a new level. The Dnipro JSC in the JSC network across Ukraine is unique in its way – nowhere else do so many routes and crossing points of media workers, freelancers, documentarians, and fixers converge as here. Dnipro is the last outpost for many journalists, from where they will leave for the combat zone. And they should leave as prepared, safe, and confident as possible. This requires attention to the work of JSCs from both the NUJU and international partners.
In his report, correspondent Christiaan Paauwe from the aforementioned Dutch broadcaster NOS vividly showed the realities of the war in Ukraine. And he commented on them with the words: “I hope Europe sees what is happening here today.” What is “happening here today” is the realities of the work and life of Ukrainian journalists…”
Reference Information:
The JSC network is a number of safe hubs for journalists. It was created in 2022 by the NUJU in partnership with the International and European Federations of Journalists. The network’s key partner is the UNESCO headquarters. The JSCs operate in six regions – Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk. They provide media professionals with protective equipment (body armor, helmets, first aid kits), equipment, security consultations, legal and psychological assistance, as well as space to work. Over the past two years, more than 2,400 journalists have used the services of JSCs. Among them are Ukrainian and foreign correspondents, including from Le Monde, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Daily Mail, SVT, RFE/RL, and other leading media outlets.
The JSCs have become a key infrastructure for the safety of journalists in war zones and an example of international solidarity in protecting freedom of speech.
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How to find JSCs?
The JSCs are located at the following addresses:
- In Kyiv – 27A Khreshchatyk Street, phone: 050 680 5204 (Illia Suzdaliev);
- In Lviv – 5 Solomiyi Krushelnytskoyi Street, 2nd floor; phone: 097 907 9702 (Nataliya Voitovych); point of presence in Chernivtsi – 96 Nezalezhnosti Avenue, phone: 068 286 3706 (Volodymyr Bober);
- In Ivano-Frankivsk – 25 Sichovykh Striltsiv Street; phone: 066 677 0726 (Viktoriya Plakhta);
- In Zaporizhzhia – 152 Sobornyi Avenue, phone: 096 277 5352 (Nataliya Kuzmenko and Valentyna Manzhura);
- In Dnipro – 8 Starokozatska Street; phone: 050 919 8479 (Nataliya Nazarova);
- In Kharkiv – phone: 095 421 5477 (Hanna Chernenko).
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