“Russian invaders consider independent media journalists as their targets,” Sergiy Tomilenko at NUJU metro exhibition

“Journalists become the voice of war victims,” stressed Sergiy Tomilenko, the President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), opening the exhibition called Ukraine: Journalists on the Front, dedicated to Journalist’s Day. It took place at the lobby of the Zoloti Vorota [Golden Gate] metro station in Kyiv.

“The key role of journalists in the war is the fight against injustice!” said the Union’s President. “The occupiers have sown a lot of grief, continue to take lives and create hundreds of thousands of tragedies. The law enforcement officers do not have time to record all these war crimes. That is why we, journalists, become the voice of war victims; we give a chance for justice to everyone who lost their relatives and friends!”

Serhiy Tomilenko emphasized that the Russian invaders consider representatives of Ukrainian and foreign independent media as their targets and do everything to silence free speech and Russian propaganda to conquer Ukrainians. But Ukrainian journalists give a worthy rebuff to such efforts.

“We bow our heads to the memory of the dead journalists and express our solidarity with those colleagues who are in captivity,” Serhiy Tomilenko stressed. “We demand the immediate release of UNIAN journalist Dmytro Khyliuk, Crimean journalists Vladyslav Yesypenko, Iryna Danylovych, citizen Crimean Tatar journalists against whom Russia staged a trial in Crimea… And we express solidarity with Iryna Levchenko – our colleague from Zaporizhzhia, who, together with her husband, was thrown into ‘the basement’ by the occupiers in Melitopol in May… Her fate is currently unknown.”

Sergiy Tomilenko emphasized that every independent journalist is a threat to the occupiers.

The NUJU‘s exhibition at the Zoloti Vorota metro station presented a collection of photos of famous photographers illustrating the work of Ukrainian soldiers, information about media representatives killed as a result of Russian aggression, and photos of media people persecuted by the Russian authorities in Crimea.

Some of the pictures presented at the exhibition were taken by journalists with the cameras received from the NUJU, thanks to the support of its international partners.

NUJU Information Service