“The Frontline Press Project Gave Us a Chance to Hold On” – Sumy’s Vash Shans Holding on Despite the War

At the final Frontline Press meeting, deputy editor of the Sumy newspaper Vash Shans Iryna Chyrchenko told how a powerful regional publication, which had shrunk to the level of a local media outlet due to the war, retained its quality and readership thanks to the program.

Before the war, Vash Shans was a powerful regional publication with a circulation of about 70,000 copies, covering the entire city of Sumy and all districts of the region. With the beginning of the invasion, when russian tanks approached Sumy, the newspaper, unfortunately, shrunk to the level of a local media outlet, and its circulation fell to 2,500. Despite this, the editorial staff decided to keep the bar high and not lose its readers – in particular, 35,000 IDPs who came to Sumy and for whom the local publication became a source of information and support in their new place.

“The project gave us a chance to hold on, to keep this bar very high and not lose our readers,” said Iryna Chyrchenko.

Thanks to the program, the newsroom attracted freelance correspondents, among them the displaced journalist, and established feedback with the audience. With the grant funds, we managed to rent a room from which the newsroom is building a full-fledged hub for communicating with readers, veterans and heroes of the materials. Separately, the editor emphasized that this is the first grant won in history for Vash Shans.

“Usually, border or relocated newsrooms enter such programs, so for us, participation was truly an event. Thanks to such projects, we will live,” emphasized Iryna Chyrchenko.

The speech was delivered during the final online meeting of the Frontline Press program, which brought together more than 50 participants on the eve of Journalist’s Day.

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The speech was delivered during the final online meeting of the Frontline Press program, which brought together more than 50 participants on the eve of Journalist’s Day.

Frontline Press is a joint initiative of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) and the Swedish Media Business Association (Tidningsutgivarna, TU), launched in late 2025 to support independent local and frontline newspapers operating in regions under constant russian shelling and information pressure. The six-month program included 25 newsrooms from Kharkiv, Donetsk, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and other regions. In addition to financial support, the newsrooms received professional mentoring support, consultations on editorial development, assistance in preparing materials for an international audience, as well as the opportunity to communicate directly with Swedish media partners. The initiative was a response to the critical situation in which local media near the frontline found themselves: newsrooms work under constant drone and missile attacks, power outages, infrastructure destruction, psychological exhaustion, and a sharp decline in the advertising market.

The interim results of the program were summarized in April 2026 during the Ukrainian-Swedish Forum Journalism on the Edge, which brought together editors of frontline media, journalists, international partners, and representatives of the diplomatic corps in Kyiv. It was then that Frontline Press participants spoke publicly about how local newspapers remain one of the key elements of community resilience in frontline regions, providing people with verified information and maintaining a sense of normal life even during war.

During the implementation of the program, editors of frontline newspapers have repeatedly become the voices of their communities and at the international level. In particular, the editors – participants of Frontline Press – received awards and thanks from the Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom Valerii Zaluzhnyi in recognition of their work in conditions of war and informational resistance to russian aggression. A separate symbol of international solidarity was the transfer in Stockholm by the President of the NUJU Sergiy Tomilenko of a copy of the Zoria newspaper from the frontline Lyman to his Swedish colleagues – as evidence that the Ukrainian local press continues to work even under fire.

The topic of support for Ukrainian frontline media was also raised in Sweden during the speech of Sergiy Tomilenko at the traditional Mandagsrörelsen (Monday Meetings) in Stockholm – a well-known public initiative of solidarity with Ukraine. The President of the NUJU emphasized that Ukrainian journalists today perform not only a professional, but also a social and humanitarian mission, remaining a source of trust and connection for people in communities near the front line.

NUJU Information Service