On 18 December 2023, media reported that due to regular Russian shelling Ukrainian TV signal was absent in the Ukrainian city of Nikopol, which lies on the frontline separating Russian and Ukrainian forces. According to a local correspondent of Hromadske Radio, a Kyiv-based broadcaster, telecommunications are one of the main targets of shelling in Nikopol by Russian forces, alongside the local water supply infrastructure.
“T2 [a Ukrainian digital TV broadcasting platform] has not been working [in Nikopol] for more than three months, there is no Ukrainian television in the city at all; Ukrainian radio breaks through only periodically,” Hromadske Radio correspondent Anna Tseluyko said. “People say that even Russian waves from the occupied territories, […] reach us through Russian radio…Since the beginning of the war, newspapers have not been published in the city either, previously there were seven [of these].”
The information reported by Tseluyko was confirmed to the Institute of Mass Information (IMI), a Kyiv-based press freedom group, by a representative of Ukraine’s National Council of Television and Radio, Olena Demchenko:
“There is a problem with broadcasting in Nikopol. Radio [functions] more or less [normally], with television [the situation] is worse. Just this morning, a [Russian] drone hit a [broadcasting] tower again and dislodged three antennas,” Demchenko said in a comment to IMI on December 18.
An earlier media report by Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne revealed that as of October 2023, locals in Nikopol could only watch Ukrainian television online, and only one Ukrainian radio station could be picked up across the city, with a representative of local authorities confirming at the time that Ukrainian TV signal was absent in the city due to Russian shelling of telecommunications infrastructure. The repair of this infrastructure is reportedly made difficult by Russian shelling of technical personal tasked with the repairs.
Moreover, Russian forces are reportedly successful in broadcasting Russian state-controlled TV signal in Nikopol, Suspilne claimed in its reported dated October 30.