“Newspapers are a source of hope amid fake news,” NUJU President Sergiy Tomilenko told Kyodo News

Sergiy Tomilenko, the president of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), said that newspapers supported by the largest Ukrainian journalist organization are providing reliable information amid russian disinformation and have become a “source of hope” for residents living on the front lines of the war.

“This is very important for them because they are getting their own media – media with credibility, media with a history,” the NUJU President Tomilenko told Kyodo News in a recent interview in Tokyo, adding that it gives them hope.

He said that since the start of russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, the Union has supported about 30 newspapers in frontline regions with UNESCO assistance, even as printing houses and other publishing infrastructure have been destroyed and internet access has been cut off.

On the brutal battlefields of the Kherson and Donetsk Regions, newspaper staff distributed copies to residents by hand, as postal services were unreliable.

Journalists in Ukraine are constantly in danger, with more than 25 Ukrainian reporters still being held by russia, Tomilenko said.

“Russia ignores any international conventions” and detains civilians, he said, adding that when Ukrainian journalists in occupied territories are captured by russia, they are no longer contactable, even by lawyers.

Tomilenko also emphasized the importance of democracy, citing a July revision of legislation on key anti-corruption agencies that weakened their powers and sparked widespread public protests. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later reversed course and restored the agencies’ independence.

“We want to be part of the democratic world,” Tomilenko said.