NUJU: Russia has killed 63 Ukrainian media workers since Feb. 24, 2022

Since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has committed more than 500 crimes against representatives of the press and media. This was reported at a press conference “Crimes against media workers” organized by the Center for Civil Liberties at Ukraine Crisis Media Center.

According to the statistics of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), 63 media professionals have been killed during the full-scale war, 40 of them in the ranks of the Armed Forces, and 14 cases of journalists’ deaths were recorded while performing their professional duties.

“Most media professionals do not go into collaboration, the occupiers bring their propagandists from Russia, they create their own media, and the practice of stealing local media labels is shameful,” said Serhiy Tomilenko, head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

According to the data collected by human rights activists and law enforcement officers, a wave of information neutralization took place in all occupied territories, and attacks on any independent media outlet were made. In response to a series of war crimes, the NUJU succeeded in depriving Russian journalists of the right to use their journalistic status in the international arena, including the decision to terminate the membership of the Russian Union of Journalists in the International Federation of Journalists.

According to the Center for Civil Liberties, 16 cases of enforced disappearance of media workers in Ukraine were recorded, 11 of them were released, and 1 person was killed (Max Levin). Most of them are residents of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. Currently, five journalists are being held in Russian prisons without any grounds: Dmitry Khilyuk, Sergey Tsygipa, Irina Danilovich, Irina Levchenko, and Vasily Filimonov. Most often, these people were abducted right from their homes. In addition, at least 15 journalists in the temporarily occupied Crimea are imprisoned on cases fabricated under terrorist articles or articles on possession of weapons or explosives.

“There are certain professions that are always at the forefront: journalists, people who work with professional media, people who have become journalists, correspondents, photographers. These people are usually the first to get to the territories where events require the most coverage. And it is these people who become one of the first victims of the occupation and aggressive entities, such as the Russian army and Wagner group,” said Oleksandra Romantsova, Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties.

Serhiy Movchan, Head of the War Crimes Documentation Department of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, spoke about the prospects of accountability for war crimes against journalists and the activities of the global initiative ‘Tribunal for Putin’ in this area. In particular, the initiative has recorded more than four thousand cases of enforced disappearance of civilians.

Earlier, the Institute of Mass Information revealed four Russian schemes to “denazify Ukrainian education”.

Main image: Freepik

Photos: Center for Civil Liberties