On 12 June 2024, a representative of the press service of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, Nataliya Ohorodnya, informed journalists in a common chat that “relevant structures” had imposed a ban on filming an area in the city of Kriviy Rih which was recently targeted in Russian shelling. This was reported by the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Ukrainian press freedom group, which quoted Sofia Skyba, the executive director of Pershiy Kryvorizkiy, a local TV channel.
“Colleagues! At the moment, there is a BAN from relevant structures on any filming at the site of the emergency situation in Kryvyi Rih! The media which arrived at the scene of the emergency and started filming, stop!!”, read the message in the common chat, according to Skyba. The director of Pershiy Krivorizkiy added that she and her editorial team considered such a ban “a monopoly of the authorities on information.”
“On Wednesday, after all the [Telegram] channels posted all the videos, social media users also spread the address of the strike online, and it was announced that a humanitarian assistance center would be opened, local representatives of military authorities forbid us from filming anything,” Skyba said. “That is, this was not about ‘not publishing [photos] for three hours’ [a common security measure in Ukraine to avoid Russian double-tap strikes]. It was a ban on filming civilians and buildings. No explanations.”
According to Skyba, together with her colleagues, they asked several times for an explanation behind the reasons for the ban. “In response [we heard] refusals and aggression,” Skyba claimed. “I believe that this is: a) a sign of general fatigue, which, among other things, also affects the employees of the press services; b) an unspoken indication of censorship; c) information monopoly. I want to be wrong in all three cases.”
She also noted that an hour and a half after the strike, the State Emergency Service and President Volodymyr Zelensky released a video from the place of the incident, making the reasoning behind the ban imposed on media workers unclear, as it would have been effective even after many other legtimitate sources published footage. A media lawyer working with IMI also confirmed to the press freedom group that the filming ban imposed by authorities in Kriviy Rih did not seem justified.
Representatives of authorities were not known to have commented on the incident.