THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
Dariya Li, a cousin of TV journalist Anton Kolomiiets from Kherson, who voluntarily went to the front and was killed near Bakhmut on December 20, 2022, spoke about him at the opening of the photo exhibition titled Ukraine: Journalists on the Front and organized by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) in the lobby of the Kyiv metro station Zoloti Vorota [Golden Gate] on June 2.
Anton Kolomiiets, a journalist of Suspilne, dreamed of liberating his hometown, but Kherson was liberated while Anton was undergoing military training. Therefore, the journalist got to serve under Bakhmut, where he was killed under enemy fire.
“Anton and his family were under occupation in the first days of the large-scale war. But he managed to get his family out of there, even though it took four attempts,” Dariya said.
During one of the checks, the Donetsk People’s Republic inspectors did not want to let Anton in because he was ‘dressed suspiciously’: in a white shirt and a suit. The fact is that Anton never wore jeans or T-shirts, because he believed that a journalist should wear classic clothes… After conducting an additional inspection, the DPR representatives found a journalist’s license with him.
“His life hung in the balance. His wife, on her knees, pleaded not to shoot him. And the DPR fighter said: “You are a journalist! You dug up something here!” And he was just silent…” said Dariya. “Later, having already left for Odesa, he told me that he couldn’t say anything because didn’t want to lie: he really hated them. “They came to kill us,” Anton added then.
Having left for Odesa, Anton began knocking on the thresholds of military commissariats. He was not taken because of his health and because he is not registered in Odesa. But the journalist answered: “My Kherson is under occupation! If everyone thinks that someone else will do their work for them, how can we, Ukrainians, claim anything big? If you don’t count on yourself, then who?”
Anton Kolomiiets was killed under fire while saving his brothers…
“There are very few professional journalists, and they should be protected with all might!… I am very grateful that you found me. When I was invited, I immediately canceled all my meetings… Because the memory of the dead is important. They are alive only thanks to our memory – the killed journalists… Both those who fulfill their professional duty and those who took a helmet and a machine gun and went to the front, like my brother Anton…” said Dariya Li.
She added that Anton‘s profession helped his family when it was necessary to collect documents to receive funds from the state. “It’s not a small thing – the fact that a family that has lost a husband, a father, faces constant obstacles in gathering information, humiliation… We cannot be silent about this,” said Dariya Li.
As earlier reported, for the exhibition at the Golden Gate metro station, the NUJU collected photos by famous photographers that illustrate the work of Ukrainian soldiers; information about media workers who were killed as a result of the Russian aggression; photos of media people persecuted by the Russian authorities in Crimea. Journalists took some of the pictures presented at the exhibition with the help of cameras received from the NUJU with the support of international partners.
NUJU Information Service
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