Russia has committed over 450 crimes against media in Ukraine

Over eight months of the full-scale war russia has committed 457 crimes against journalists and media in Ukraine. This is the data of the monitoring conducted by the Institute of Mass Information.

As of October 24, russian military has killed 42 journalists in Ukraine. Eight of them were killed in the line of duty (3 Ukrainians and 5 foreign citizens). 34 died as combatants or were killed due to shelling, not in the course of their professional work.

To see the complete list of killed journalists follow the link.

Through September-October, four media workers were killed while defending Ukraine in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

• Dmytro Shypovskyi, cameraman and serviceman, killed by mortar fire on September 21 near Druzhba village, Donetsk oblast. He had been defending Ukraine in the ranks of the UAF since March.
• Yurii Leliavskyi, journalist, head of the public relations service of the 80th separate airborne assault brigade of the UAF Airborne Forces, died in a battle with the Russian invaders in the country’s south.
• Serhiy Sylkin, former sound engineer at Suspilne and a military serviceman from Ivano-Frankivsk, killed on October 17 in a battle with Russian invaders near Bakhmut, Donetsk oblast.
• Vasyl Yavorsky, “Pershy Zakhidny” and “Espresso” director, co-author of the “Hero’s Story” project, soldier of the 103rd Brigade of the UAF Territorial Defense Forces, died in Donetsk oblast.

Since the beginning of russian full-scale invasion at least 215 TV- and radio broadcasters, online and print media have stopped their operations, completely or partially, due to occupation or hostilities. Those are mostly the media outlets from Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Khmelnytsky, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Luhansk and Chernihiv regions.

Apart from this, IMI has documented at least 14 journalists from Mariupol who have gone missing.

It shall be reminded that in September alone there were 19 crimes against the freedom of speech recorded in Ukraine. Overall in half a year there have been 484 cases of violation of the freedom of speech in Ukraine.