“A busy day:” Sergiy Tomilenko talks about his work trip to Donetsk Region

“A busy day in the Donetsk Region is coming to an end,” NUJU President Sergiy Tomilenko wrote on Facebook in his report on the trip to the front-line region.

This day, he managed to visit Sloviyansk and Kramatorsk. On the way to Donbas, he also made a stop in de-occupied Izium in the Kharkiv Region to visit the newsroom of the Obrii Iziumshchyny newspaper, which is headed by the NUJU Secretary, Kostiantyn Hryhorenko.

“I was glad to visit our veteran journalist, honorary member of the union, Vasyl Chornobrovyi, who lives in Sloviyansk with his family and had the honor not only to present him with the NUJU award but also to support the family of pensioners with grocery sets from our partners,” noted Sergiy Tomilenko.

Vasyl Chornobrovyi calls the central office of the NUJU every month to talk about survival in a city targeted by occupiers and about communication with local media people. “That’s why today’s warm personal meeting is important,” Sergiy Tomilenko added.

As is known, the NUJU supported the Sloviyansk city newspaper, Visti, which managed to survive: its third issue has already been printed after the full-scale invasion. The NUJU President discussed with the newspaper’s editor-in-chief Oleksandr Kulbaka the importance of the newspaper for the region and the future sustainability of the publication, as the access of Ukrainians to information is extremely important today.

” I, together with my colleague, went to the central square of Sloviyansk and handed copies of the revived newspaper over to the townspeople,” noted Sergiy Tomilenko.

As Oleksandr Kulbaka notes, today, the newsroom pays back the debts of last year’s subscribers and distributes the rest of the circulation for free.

“Even before the war, there was no such interest in the newspaper as it is now,” says the editor. “In some settlements, especially de-occupied ones, there is neither electricity nor mobile communication, and people live in a complete information vacuum. People receive information standing in line for humanitarian aid. Therefore, it is very important that the newspaper is published and reaches readers.”

A separate important event within the NUJU President’s trip to the Donetsk Region was a visit to the cemetery where the famous journalist from Sloviyansk, Ihor Aleksandrov, killed in 2001 for his active journalistic position, is buried.

“In those days, this case was as resonant as the murder of Gongadze. We must remember all crimes against journalists and demand justice. Especially now that many journalists are fighting, both on the information front and holding weapons in their hands,” emphasized Sergiy Tomilenko.

The NUJU President, together with his colleagues, drove to Mount Karachun, an outpost of the fight against terrorists in 2014. And on the way to Sloviyansk, he stopped in Izium “to shake the hand of his colleague Kostiantyn Hryhorenko, who was the first in the de-occupied city to start printing a local newspaper.”

In Kramatorsk, Sergiy Tomilenko visited the place of great sadness – the ruins of the RIA pizzeria, which was recently hit by a Russian missile that took the lives of innocent people. Among them was the famous writer and war crimes investigator Viktoriya Amelina. This pizzeria was a favorite meeting place of many front-line reporters. And these terrible shots are now a reminder of the fragility of peaceful realities in the Donetsk Region.

Also, in Kramatorsk, Sergiy Tomilenko managed to hold a conversation about strengthening the interaction of citizen journalists and press officers with the deputy chief of the press service of the Eastern Forces Group (Khortytsia), Alan Zhanhozha. The Ukrainian counteroffensive caused a new wave of interest in Ukraine from the international media, and the resonance of these materials contributed to new foreign aid to Ukraine.

The Union’s President spoke with Tetiana Ihnatchenko, a spokesperson for the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, about the readiness to hire journalists (or organize internships for them).

“Therefore, colleagues, if you feel the strength and desire, as well as if you have completed safety training for journalists working in hot spots, there is a chance to get an interesting and important job in the front-line area,” said Sergiy Tomilenko. “Victory will be ours!

NUJU Information Service