Iryna Levchenko, a former local journalist and member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) has been illegally arrested in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia, southeast of the country. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) join their affiliate, the NUJU, in condemning the illegal arrest of Levchenko and urge the authorities of the occupied territories to immediately and unconditionally release her and all other journalists held behind bars. On 31 May, the NUJU reported the disappearance of former Ukrainian journalist and union member, Iryna Levchenko, and her husband, Oleksandr Levchenko, in the southeastern city of Melitopol, in the…

Journalist Arman Soldin was killed on 9 May 2023 in the afternoon in a shelling attack near Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine. The 32- year- old was working for the news agency Agence France Presse (AFP). The European and International Federations of Journalists (EFJ-IFJ) join their affiliates in Ukraine and France in expressing their condolences to Soldin’s relatives, colleagues and friends. The attack happened at around 4:30 pm on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a town close to Bakhmut, the epicentre of the fighting in eastern Ukraine for several months. Four AFP colleagues and a group of Ukrainian military personnel survived the attack uninjured.…

Two journalists working for the Italian newspaper La Repubblica came under fire on 26 April 2023, while reporting near the Antonivskiy Bridge on the outskirts of Kherson, in southern Ukraine. A Ukrainian journalist working as a fixer, Bohdan Bitik, was shot dead. His Italian colleague, Corrado Zunino, was wounded in the shoulder. Zunino was wearing a bulletproof vest marked “press” but it is unclear whether Bitik wore one as well. The attack was carried out “most likely by Russian snipers”, the newspaper reported. “I’m well, I’ve got a wound in my right shoulder, shaved by the bullet that hit my…

In the week of the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Dainius Radzevičius, President of the Lithuanian Journalists’ Union (LŽS), shares the work done in collaboration with Sergiy Tomilenko, President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), and a unique initiative: the magazine “We are from Ukraine!”. The publication has been put together by journalists, publishers, translators and media organisations from both countries, and the first edition was published in 80,000 copies. The teams behind the collaborative project are from Vilnius, Klaipeda and various cities in Ukraine. “The main idea was cooperation,” said…

Hanna Chernenko is a Kharkiv-based journalist and a member of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU). She comes from the Luhansk region in the Donbas, where the armed conflict against Russia began in 2014. For one year, she has been covering the war in her country for local media Visti Television News Service and Hromadske Radio and, from time to time, assists international media crews that report on the conflict. Hanna shares with the International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) how her journalistic work has changed throughout the last year, and reflects on the role of journalists…

Today, marking one year since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) partners reiterate our condemnation of Russia’s war of aggression. We continue to stand in solidarity with the journalists and media workers who cover the events at great risk to their safety and remember those who have died in the line of duty. The war’s deadly toll has cast a dark shadow over press freedom in Europe. Killing, kidnapping, torture and other attacks on journalists and media workers has no place in Ukraine, and those responsible must face justice for their…

We are writers, journalists, artists, human rights defenders, and those who stand in solidarity with them from around the world, including those who stay in Ukraine and made the difficult decision to leave our homes. On the one-year marking of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, we write to express our collective condemnation of Russia’s multi-pronged war against the Ukrainian people and culture. We grieve for the thousands of people killed as casualties of Russia’s campaign of violence. Russia’s war has sought to rupture Ukraine’s social fabric and culture, displacing millions of people in the destruction of cities and towns. We grieve for…

Today, one year after the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Partner Organisations to the Safety of Journalists’ Platform remember the colleagues who lost their lives while covering the war, those who have endured injury, abduction, torture and suffering and express full support for all journalists who report truthfully about the war. According to alerts published on the Platform, to date, twelve journalists and media workers have been killed while covering the war, or in connection with their profession, and 23 others have been injured. The Partner Organisations condemn the threats to the lives and safety of journalists and media…

Two Italian journalists, Andrea Sceresini and Alfredo Bosco, had their press accreditation withdrawn on 6 February 2023 while reporting for the public broadcaster Rai3 in Ukraine. Since then, they have been unable to work, awaiting interrogation by the Ukrainian security service (SBU). The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) joined its Italian affiliate, the FNSI, in calling on the Ukrainian authorities to let the journalists continue their reporting by granting them new accreditation as soon as possible. In a letter published in Il Fatto Quotidiano,the two freelance reporters wrote that the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence had notified them of the suspension of…

Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February, Sergiy Tomilenko, president of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), looks back on a year of relentless work, in which NUJU has supported journalists on the ground and assesses the challenges they face as the war enters its second year. In this interview with the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), Sergiy Tomilenko highlights the crucial role of the Solidarity Centers in ensuring that local and international media can report on the conflict, and the imperative need for more funds to continue supporting Ukrainian journalists.…

On 24 February 2023, it will be one year since Russia invaded Ukraine. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ/EFJ) are launching a new fundraising campaign to support Ukrainian journalists on the ground. On this occasion, the International Federation of Journalists interviewed Xhemajl Rexha, president of the Association of Journalists of Kosovo (AJK), about the work carried through their program “Journalists in Residence – Kosovo” with the Government of Kosovo and the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom (ECMPF) in collaboration with the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), as they are welcoming Ukrainian journalists by providing them with…

Italian freelance journalist Claudio Locatelli was injured by Russian fire on December 19 in the southern city of Kherson, while driving a car marked clearly as press, together with photojournalist Niccolò Celesti and their interpreter, Daniel. The International and European Federation of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) join their affiliate, the National Federation of the Italian Press (FNSI), in condemning the deliberate attack and recalling that Ukraine is the deadliest country for journalists and media workers in 2022 with 12 killed. On Wednesday, at the request of the Italian embassy, the Ukrainian authorities opened an investigation into a possible war crime. On December…

Award-winning journalist Matilde Kimer, who has been working at the Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) since 2014 and covering Russia and Ukraine since the annexation of Crimea, has been banned from Ukraine by the authorities. Her press credential in the country have been removed after she was labelled “pro-russian”. She has shared, on her Facebook page, links to some of her reports, including reports on pro-russian demonstrations. The Ukrainian authorities have said her credentials would be restored if she shared information that they would supply directly. Kimer announced that she refused, as an independent journalist, to write stories using materials produced…

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) condemns the establishment of branches of the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) in the Ukrainian territories illegally annexed by Russia. The EFJ calls on RUJ to renounce these settlements and reaffirms its solidarity with its Ukrainian affiliates, the journalists’ unions NUJU and IMTUU. On Monday, the Russian Union of Journalists announced on its website that the organisation’s leadership had decided to establish four new branches in the Ukrainian territories illegally annexed by Russia on 30 September: in Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. The RUJ statement said that this was the main decision taken by…

On 16 September 2000, investigative journalist Georgy Gongadze, founder of the online daily Ukrainska Pravda, was kidnapped and murdered. 22 years after the murder, the person who ordered the killing is still at large. The journalist disappeared on 16 September 2000. His beheaded body was found six weeks later, about 100 km from Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Georgiy Gongadze had been investigating corruption within the Government and in the Presidency of the then President Leonid Kuchma. In the months leading to his death, Gongadze reported that he was under surveillance and had been receiving threats. After years of investigations, four former…

The building housing the offices of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), as well as media outlets and printing houses, in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, may collapse due to the damage caused following a Russian missile strike. The International and European Federations of Journalists (IFJ-EFJ) denounced the attack and expressed their support to the Kharkiv NUJU branch and the workers who are no longer able to continue their work. According to NUJU, an IFJ/EFJ affiliate, several weeks were needed to carry out checks and precise damage control following the rocket attack, which took place at night on 31 July…