THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
The National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) held a screening of the documentary called Free The Voices in Brussels. The film tells about the systemic war crimes of the russian federation – illegal kidnappings, torture and detention of Ukrainian media workers by the aggressor state. The presentation of the film took place on May 26 at the Brussels Press Club. The event was supported by the International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP), the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) and the Brussels Press Club with financial support from the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation (NORAD).
First Secretary of the NUJU Lina Kushch, who moderated a profile discussion after the screening, emphasized the importance of publicizing each personal story of captured journalists at the international level.
“Why are personal stories important in a topic such as arbitrary detention of journalists? Because this indicates a system, a violation of human rights that is repeated from one case to another, and the role of the russian state in creating and maintaining this mechanism. And European institutions should see behind individual cases a system of torture and pressure on civilian Ukrainian journalists. Legal expertise of these cases is also important – to record and analyze violations using such personal stories. And thirdly – to support families who are waiting for their relatives not for months, but for years. Whose rights are also violated, who is looking for money for lawyers, for parcels, for correspondence with relatives, for other expenses,” Lina Kushch noted.
As Ukrinform reports, the authors of the film reconstruct the circumstances of illegal abductions and expose a hidden network of russian prisons, where media workers are kept in a complete information vacuum. The organizers emphasize: this film is an attempt to return the voice to those from whom it was taken away by the occupiers.
The film contains stories about journalists who are still in captivity or who died as a result of the aggressor’s actions. In particular, the film mentions the story of investigative journalist Victoria Roshchina, who disappeared in August 2023 in the occupied territory and died in russian custody in September 2024 at the age of 27. Traces of torture were found on her body, and Ukraine classified her death as a war crime.
Among the other heroes of the film:
- Vladyslav Yesypenko – freelance journalist of the Realii project (Radio Liberty);
- Dmytro Khyliuk – correspondent of the UNIAN news agency;
- Liudmyla Huseinova – citizen journalist, human rights activist and head of the NGO “Numo, Sisters”;
- Nariman Dzhelyalov – Ambassador of Ukraine to Turkey, who was engaged in journalistic activities at the time of her detention;
- Anastasiya Hlukhovska – journalist for RIA Melitopol. She was detained by FSB officers in August 2023. russia has not officially recognized her arrest for more than two years and is hiding her location, which makes it impossible to provide legal support or include her on exchange lists;
- Yana Suvorova – 18-year-old moderator of a Melitopol resident assistance chat. In October 2025, a russian military court sentenced her to 14 years in prison on trumped-up charges of “terrorism”. She is in pre-trial detention center No. 2 in Taganrog, where Viktoriya Roshchina was tortured;
- Heorhii Levchenko – Yana’s colleague, co-administrator of the RIA Melitopol Telegram channel. In September 2025, the occupation court sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security colony for running a Ukrainian-language channel during the occupation.
Lina Kushch said that the film was created in 2025 by the Union team. To create the final 40-minute version, the authors recorded more than 15 hours of interviews, collecting facts, many of which are being announced for the first time. According to the First Secretary of the NUJU, journalists in the occupied territories are becoming targets because they continue to report the truth where russia seeks to establish complete silence. The occupiers act according to a clear scheme: they fabricate accusations of “espionage” or “terrorism” under russian law, automatically depriving civilian media workers of the protection of the Geneva Conventions. Olena Tsyhipa, the wife of journalist Serhii Tsyhipa, who was illegally detained in Nova Kakhovka and is currently being held by the occupiers in the Ryazan Oblast of the russian federation, personally participated in the presentation in Brussels. She has not seen her husband since March 2022 but is actively engaged in advocacy abroad. Olena reminded the foreign audience that her husband, through his work, has consistently destroyed the russian myth of the “liberation of the russian-speaking population”.
During the discussion, the Secretary General of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), Ricardo Gutierrez, emphasized that the main task of colleagues around the world is to never forget about the captured Ukrainian media workers.
“The russians are following the tactic of “making the world forget about illegally detained journalists”. They are doing everything possible to hide them, as if forcing them to disappear. And that is why it is very important to give them a voice,” Ricardo Gutierrez concluded.
Currently, the NUJU continues its systematic work to keep the issue of the liberation of Ukrainian media alive in the focus of the international community’s attention and encourage partners to create effective mechanisms for their return.
As earlier reported, russian special services could have been monitoring journalist Victoria Roshchina from the moment she crossed the border with the russian federation on July 26, 2023.
Photo by Beatriz Figueiredo, EFJ
Discussion about this post