On 8 July 2024, independent journalist Kamila Hrabchuk reported that she and several of her colleagues (whom she did not identify) were prevented from accessing and reporting from the site of a recent Russian missile strike in Kyiv, which targeted Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital Okhmatdyt.
“Journalists were not allowed on the [hospital] territory, I arrived somewhere around 2 p.m. [the attack took place in the late morning hours], there were already a lot of people there,” Hrabchuk told Ukrainian press freedom group Institute of Mass Information (IMI). “The police said that journalists cannot do anything there, [they told us to] look for everything in official sources, this was more or less the conversation.”
On her Facebook page, the journalist wrote that she was refused entry despite having an accreditation document with her as well as an approved request from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine, which is responsible for rescue operations, including those carried out following missile strikes. Hrabchuk said that she was admitted to the hospital only after waiting for three hours.
Commenting on the case to Detector Media, another Ukrainian press freedom group, the journalist said that she believed “the police were instructed not to let journalists in”. She added: ” They let a member of the Verkhovna Rada [parliament] pass, and when I asked why they let an MP pass, one of the police officials answered that MPs are allowed to be anywhere. Although I had accreditation from the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and I was supposed to cover the work of rescuers. What was the MP doing there? I think the police were instructed to simply not let journalists in, and they didn’t care if they were accredited or not.”
In a video posted on Youtube, a police officer can also be heard making apparently discrediting remarks on the work of journalists at the scene, saying: “many children died, and you want to use this blood for a story. When you are centrally allowed in, you will go in.” In another video, policemen can also be heard refusing to explain why the journalists were denied access.
Ukrainian media lawyer Roman Holovenko commented on the case arguing that police and other security forces did not have the competence to refuse journalists entry to sites recently damaged in Russian missile strikes, and that security limitations could only be established, if necessary, by employees of the State Emergency Service responsible for carrying out the rescue operation. Moreover, having military accreditation, as the one referred to by Hrabchuk, is not required for access to sites not related to the Ukrainian military and its operations.