The battle for Ukraine: Artists, journalists and dissidents respond
Volume 51.02 Summer 2022
Call for an end to beatings and abductions of journalists and protesters in Ukraine
Oleksandra Matviichuk is head of the Centre for Civil Liberties in Kyiv. She recorded this video for Index on Censorship to appeal to the international community to act over Russian abuses of free expression in the Ukrainian territories occupied by Russian troops since 24 February. She is particularly concerned with beatings and abductions of protesters and journalists in cities in the southeast of the country and names Khakova, Mariupol, Kherson and Berdyansk in her powerful testimony.
Index has been working closely with members of the Ukrainian media and civil society since the outbreak of the conflict. It is our intention to build a network of journalists, writers and artists in Ukraine itself and in the diaspora to help keep the outside world informed.
Index was inspired by dissidents in Russia and Czechoslovakia who protested against the Soviet invasion of 1968. We are proud to stand by those who continue to fight for freedom of expression in Ukraine today.
How an independent broadcaster in Ukraine is defying the invasion
It was never easy for hromadske. The independent Ukraine broadcaster was set up in 2013 during the dark days of Viktor Yanukovich, the pro-Russian President of Ukraine. Founded originally as an independent TV station, hromadske (public, in Ukrainian), prided itself on its freedom from control by oligarchs or the state even after Yanukovych was forced to flee by the “Maidan” protests of 2014.
Over the years journalists at the station had adapted to shifts in the media landscape and by the time of the Russian invasion hromadske was streaming topical videos on You Tube and Facebook with special reports every Tuesday and Thursday.
“From January 2022 we changed our model and had no broadcasts, only irregular live streams on the spot from what we considered to be major events,” producer Kostan Nechyporenko tells Index on Censorship. These included the treason trial of former President Petro Poroshenko and major demonstrations.
“After 24 February things changed dramatically,” says Kostan. “It was tense in the first few days and people moved out of Kyiv. We had a backup plan in case of invasion.” The station moved its studio from the centre of Ukraine, close to the country’s parliament building, to a temporary base in Vynittsia, halfway between the capital and the Moldovan border.
“We left a lot of our gear,” says Kostan. We took our most important things. We had to take care of the website as a priority.” The producer moved with his family to the countryside outside Kyiv but plans to return to the office for more equipment this week. Meanwhile, he organises logistics for hromadske crews still reporting all over the country. The film making capacity of hromadske was initially reduced, but the team took the opportunity to revive broadcasts and there is now an hour-long programme every evening at 6.30pm.
The whole mission of hromadske has now changed. “Only the video production had some problems in the early days of the war. The website and social media were working overtime and much more intensely than before. After the first five or six days the situation changed with video production too. Now we produce two to three videos a day, though they might be made in a rush. And because of the war, we’re back to digital broadcasting, though it’s of poorer quality and from a makeshift studio.”
Kostan has no doubt hromadske journalists are at mortal risk from the Russian forces. At the beginning of the war, one of his colleagues, whose must remain anonymous for security reasons, was already in the Donbas region in the east of the country to report on the shelling of Shchastia in the Luhansk region. The reporter remained there when the war started and reported from the front, but had serious problems getting out.
“Our journalist found a car and went to the front line again in the Zaporizhzhia region,” Kostan continues. “The car got shot by a Russian tank so was abandoned. The Russians took a laptop, camera and personal belongings.” Thankfully, the reporter was able to hide in an abandoned house and contact her colleagues at hromadske the next morning.
A second correspondent narrowly escaped from Irpin, on the northwest edge of Irpin, where New York Times journalist Brent Renaud was killed.
The hromadske project was founded during a flowering of independent media in Ukraine and fiercely protected its freedom from the influence of oligarchs and government. The independent values remain more important than ever as it continues to report from Ukraine under siege.
“My heart is with the people of Ukraine”
Protests against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire/PA Images
I had planned to write this week on International Women’s Day. I wanted to feature the female war journalists who are on the frontline as the artillery falls in Ukraine. The brave protesters in Russia who have made their views on the war clear, in spite of the fear of detention. The Russian female scientists who added their names to a joint letter in the academic periodical Trinity Option – causing the publication to be blocked by the Russian state censor. I wanted to write of the amazing women in Myanmar and Hong Kong and Afghanistan and Belarus who keep the dream of democracy alive.
Thankfully these brave women are still fighting the good fight. Inspiring us every day.
And as important as their stories are – and we will keep covering them at Index both in the magazine and on our website, it’s the faces on our media which are dominating my thoughts.
I feel shell-shocked, unable to turn off the news, unable to look away from the devastation being wrought by the Russian military on innocent civilians. Of course, we only know what is happening in Ukraine because we are lucky enough to have independent journalism and media plurality. And as much as I keep holding onto that – it’s the images of the shelled hospital in Mariupol, the pregnant women stumbling from the wreckage, the children sobbing as they looked for help, that I cannot move on from.
War is ugly and the innocent are always caught up in the horror. This has been true since the beginning of time. But there are some images we never thought we would see again on the streets of Europe. Children dying of starvation, residential areas targeted, Holocaust survivors once again exposed to war and fleeing their homes. War crimes happening less than 1,750 miles from where I type.
For those of us who have followed closely the war in Syria, none of this should come as a surprise. And it doesn’t but that does not make the realities on our screens any easier. Russian misinformation, propaganda and lies is adding insult to injury – I won’t share their appalling statements on the events in Mariupol, as their lies need no audience but never have I been more grateful for a free press and to live in a democratic society.
So, as we mark International Women’s Day this week my heart is with the people of Ukraine. I am inspired by their collective bravery in the face of Putin’s tyranny and violence. I grieve with them as they face the reality of war and I stand with them against the lies and deceit of the Russian Federation.