In two months of the full-scale war, Russia has committed 243 crimes against journalists and the media in Ukraine. This is according to the monitoring conducted by the Institute of Mass Information (IMI). As of April 24, seven journalists were killed while carrying out their professional duty, nine were injured, and at least 15 are missing.
IMI has documented eight cases of journalists being captured and abducted by Russians. In these cases, at least nine journalists were taken hostage. Most of them have already been released, but the fate of one of the journalists, Dmytro Khylyuk, who disappeared in Kyiv region, is still unknown.
Colleagues had some intelligence about him being taken hostage; however, the region had already been liberated from the occupants, yet nothing is known about the journalist’s whereabouts. In addition, the fate of at least 14 journalists from Mariupol also remains unknown. IMI is currently unable to verify what happened to our colleagues, so we consider them missing.
The list of Russian crimes also includes shelling, threats, harassment of journalists, shelling and seizure of TV towers, hacking attacks on Ukrainian media websites, shelling of media offices, shutting down Ukrainian broadcasting, blocking access to Ukrainian media websites in Russia and the occupied Crimea.
In addition, at least 106 regional media outlets were forced to cease their work due to threats from the Russian occupants, seizure of offices, inability to work under temporary occupation and print newspapers, etc.
Seven journalists have been killed while carrying out their duties in Kyiv and its suburbs in the two months since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Among them are three Ukrainian journalists and four foreign ones, five men and two women.
Another 14 journalists were killed as combatants or as a result of Russian shelling, not while performing their journalist duties. IMI has recorded eight cases of capturing and abduction of journalists by the Russian invaders. These cases have occurred in the temporarily occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia (Melitopol) and Kherson (Nova Kakhovka) regions.
Namely, these are the abduction of journalists and the publisher of “Melitopolski Vidomosti” newspaper and taking the father of RIA-Melitopol journalist Svitlana Zalizetska, as well as Nova Kakhovka journalists Oleh Baturyn and Oleksandr Hunko, hostage.
The Russian occupants have shelled 11 TV towers in eight regions of Ukraine: Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia region), Kyiv and Vinarivka village (Kyiv region), Kharkiv (hit the TV tower twice) and the region (Izyum), Rivne, Vinnytsia, Korosten (Zhytomyr region), Lysychansk (Luhansk region), Bilopillya (Sumy region). As a result of Russian air strikes, Ukrainian broadcasting has completely or partially disappeared in these regions.
In addition, the occupants have seized Ukrainian media offices and switched the broadcasting to Russian channels. In particular, the Russian invaders forcibly shut Kherson and Melitopol off from Ukrainian broadcasting, and mined Suspilne’s building in Kherson.
IMI has also recorded numerous DDoS attacks on the websites of Ukrainian online media and NGOs covering Russia’s war against Ukraine. Media websites have been hacked, news reports edited, Russian symbols or calls to surrender posted.
Namely, the attacks were targeting the websites of Suspilne, NV, Channel 5, “Babel,” Lutsk website “Konkurent,” “Poltavska Khvylya” media, the website of Kherson’s “Novy den” newspaper, Minfin.com.ua financial periodical, the Kherson edition MOST, TV channel websites “Espresso,” “Detector Media,” etc. In addition, IMI recorded phishing attacks on Ukrainian media offices and journalists.
Since the end of March, IMI has recorded threats being sent to Ukrainian media outlets and journalists via email. The threatening letters came from the russian mail.ru service, signed by various users.
Journalists have been threatened with interrogation, torture, and incarceration, and were even sent rhymed threats later. Such letters have been received by the editorial offices of European Pravda, Hlavkom, Apostrof, Krym.Realii, Zaporizhzhia city website 061.ua, and a number of Volyn and Zaporizhzhia media outlets.
Russian crimes against journalists and the media have been recorded in 16 regions of Ukraine. Russia has committed the most crimes in Kyiv and Kyiv region (murder, wounding, disappearances, and abductions, shelling of journalists and TV towers, threats, cybercrimes). Then come Zaporizhzhia and Kherson: some cities in these regions are occupied by the Russian army; there have been cases of abductions, shooting on journalists, threats, cybercrimes, seizure of media offices and the shutdown of Ukrainian broadcasting. Many Ukrainian editorial offices have been with interruptions due to sirens and shelling throughout Ukraine.
