THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
On the night of February 3, the Dnipropetrovsk Region experienced another massive enemy attack with drones and missiles. As a result of russian strikes in Dnipro, a number of fires broke out, and there is damage to the territory of an infrastructure facility, a shelter for displaced persons, an apartment building, and private homes. The blast wave hit the house of Viktoriya Sydorenko, a journalist for the online publication Farmer of the Dnipropetrovsk region, a well-known radio journalist, and a member of the Board of the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU).
The windows in the house were broken, and the front door was damaged. The metal garage gate was bent, and the glass in the car was shattered.
“It happened around one in the morning,” says Viktoriya Sydorenko. “We were already awake, we listened. And at some point, the anxiety intensified, my husband and I jumped up, quickly got dressed, and had just moved away from the windows when we heard a loud explosion, after which the glass in the house shattered. The wind whistled, and we, as if in fear to move, leaned against the wall, looked at each other, and could do nothing….”
“When it subsided a little, we inspected the damage. Fortunately, in the room where the journalist’s mother was sleeping (the woman has not been able to get up for several years due to illness), the windows were intact. A frightened shepherd dog, Nora, ran in from outside. We had to give her a sedative, and we ourselves came to our senses a little. We spent the rest of the night in the basement.”
“The first shock of horror had already passed. The second one began with the cold. Even the frames of the surviving windows were cracked. Some had already been boarded up. It’s good that the house kept its inhabitants alive, oh, how good!” Viktoriya wrote on Facebook. “I go, I clean it up, I thank you, I fold the glass, and I believe in retribution. It will come, even if not in this life. Now, together with my beads, thin glass crumbs have ‘befriended’. You won’t choose. But you will choose, Vi, you won’t go anywhere, you have to, because otherwise there is no way….”
The Dnipro Journalists’ Solidarity Center (JSC) and the Board of the Dnipropetrovsk regional organization will petition the NUJU for financial assistance for their colleague.
The network of Journalists’ Solidarity Centers is an initiative of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, implemented in collaboration with the International and European Federations of Journalists and UNESCO, and with the support of the People of Japan. Our primary goal is to assist media professionals working in Ukraine during the war. The Centers are active in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipro, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk. The project is part of UNESCO’s broader efforts to support the Safety of Journalists and Freedom of Expression in Ukraine.
Contact the Dnipro JSC at 050 919 8479 (Nataliya Nazarova, the coordinator of the Dnipro JSC).
Dnipro JSC information service
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