THE NATIONAL UNION OF
JOURNALISTS OF UKRAINE
My husband kept telling me, “Tanya, there will be war. Tanya, there will be war. Pack your things.” I didn’t want to believe him. I didn’t want to hear it. At that time, we had just moved into a new house. We had built it ourselves and moved in during the summer, living there for only five months. Our little daughter was just two years old then.
When February 24 came, we didn’t fully feel the impact of the war. It hit us on March 2, when the electricity went out in the Huliaipillia community. Along with electricity, gas, water, and the internet also disappeared completely. We were entirely cut off from information. I remember how terrifying it was. I put my phone on the top cabinet, hoping to catch a signal and understand what was happening in the world. My grandma, who was 84 years old at the time, woke up one morning and asked me, “Tanya, where are we? Are we in Russia or Ukraine?” People were so scared and disoriented that we didn’t even know where we were anymore. The greatest fear came to our community on March 5, when we heard the first explosions. They were deafening. We went outside and watched as missiles struck the city center. We hid in our parents’ cellar, running there as fast as we could. Imagine this: my whole family crowded into that cellar—my little daughter, my sister and her daughter, my elderly grandmother, and my parents. Everyone had to squeeze into that damp, cold space to take shelter.
The cellar wasn’t equipped for such a situation. It was cold and damp, but we brought mattresses, dressed warmly, and took cover. Although we stayed there for two days, it felt like two years. Then my husband made a decision: he told me, “You need to leave immediately.” On March 7, at 6 a.m., he put us in a car. I drove, with my little daughter beside me and my sister and her daughter in the back. The four of us left. We fled to Ivano-Frankivsk, where we lived for nine months. Life continued, and we started to read the news, trying to decide what to do next. I saw my colleagues returning to work, reviving pro-front media efforts. That’s when I decided it was time to return to Zaporizhzhia. I reached out to Sergiy Tomilenko, the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine. I asked him, “What should I do? Push me in the right direction, and I’ll figure out the rest. Can you help me with funding?” His response was simple but life-changing: “Tanya, yes, let’s launch and get started.” His confirmation gave me the strength to move forward, and I will remember that moment for the rest of my life.
I returned to work, and on October 3, 2023, we published the first issue of our newspaper after a year and a half. I counted—it had been 586 days since the last edition reached readers. This newspaper, with almost 100 years of history, had been silenced. It was first founded in October 1930, and this October, it turned 94. I felt a responsibility to ensure its legacy continued.
The nature of our work has changed significantly. We’ve moved away from daily news reporting because, as you know, news has a very short lifespan. Instead, we focus on stories about volunteers, defenders, and the atrocities committed by Russian occupiers in the Huliaipillia community. We speak with the families of fallen defenders, honoring their memories. These stories are deeply emotional. For example, we might write about a municipal worker who kept the city clean, and now, he’s a fallen hero on the Kursk front. Before the war, we published a weekly eight-page edition. Now, we publish every two weeks with the same page count. The changes are due to several challenges. We lost our advertising department, which used to fill three or four pages of each issue. We lost many subscribers and staff. Our team of eight has been reduced to four. Contracts for coverage with local communities are no longer possible, and we must rely on financial support from the state or international partners. Despite these challenges, we continue to publish the newspaper, even in the most remote areas. Ukrposhta delivers copies to villages like those in the Huliaipillia community. Our office has been severely damaged twice, but we keep going thanks to support from the National Union of Journalists and international organizations.
Our work extends beyond the newspaper. We’ve started preserving these stories in books, working with a former editor turned publisher. One book compiles the stories of defenders who protect the Olympic region. These stories must be recorded and preserved. I constantly emphasize the need for financial support to ensure we can continue this work. District media like ours are facing immense challenges. We’ve lost so much—advertising, subscribers, staff—but we still have the passion and determination to write and document history. Journalists risk their lives to cover the war, and their sacrifices must be acknowledged. While I avoid sending my team to dangerous front lines, we focus on stories that matter—stories of people, defenders, and those who have given their lives. These are the stories that must be told, not just for today but for future generations.
Created as part of the project “Raising awareness among target groups in Ukraine and abroad about Russian war crimes against journalists in 2024 and increasing public pressure for the release of captured journalists”, which is implemented by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine with support of the Swedish non-profit human rights organization Civil Rights Defenders.
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