This text is part of the 2023 Monitoring Report published by the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) consortium, of which the International Press Institute (IPI) is a member. Read the full report here.

 

Media freedom in Ukraine faced the greatest crisis in the country’s modern history in 2022.

Russia’s full-scale invasion in February posed existential threats to the future of Ukrainian journalism and the country’s democratic system. Russia’s war of aggression also took a deadly toll on journalists and media workers covering the war from the front lines, making 2022 the deadliest year for journalists in Europe in many decades. The killings, threats, and pressures facing the media in Ukraine have cast a dark shadow over press freedom in Europe and brought into focus the devastating effect war has on journalism.

The MFFR began monitoring Ukraine as soon as the invasion began on 24 February 2022. During the reporting period, Ukraine officially became a candidate country for the European Union in June 2022. During the 10 months of 2022 in which the MFRR recorded alerts in Ukraine, the MapMF platform documented 140 attacks and violations of media freedom involving 220 different targets. The majority of these alerts (60.7%) were documented during the first three months of the conflict, with attacks persisting through the summer but then steadily decreasing in autumn. Overall, journalists and reporters were attacked in 65% of the recorded cases, while photographers and camera operators accounted for 25% of alerts, and media outlets/broadcasters a further 22.8%.

Nine Journalists and media workers, both Ukrainian reporters and international correspondents, are confirmed to have been killed in the line of duty or as part of their journalistic work in Ukraine in 2022, according to MFRR monitoring partners: Ihor Hudenko, Yevheniy Sakun, Brent Renaud, Pierre Zakrzewski, Oleksandra Kuvshynova, Oksana Baulina, Maks Levin, Mantas Kvedaravičius, and Frédéric Leclerc-Imhoff. Five were killed by gunfire, three by shelling, and one in unconfirmed circumstances. In some cases, there is evidence that Russian troops targeted the journalists and their crews despite clear PRESS insignia on vehicles or safety gear. In others, MFRR partners were unable to independently identify the source of the fire. All of these killings occurred during the first four months of the conflict when fast-changing frontlines exposed war reporters to the most serious physical harm.

There is partial evidence that at least three more Ukrainian journalists and media workers may have been killed or executed by Russian troops in occupied territory in apparent connection to their profession, though these cases have not yet been verified and the motive remains unclear. Further investigations by Ukrainian authorities are needed to confirm the details. The data of the MFRR partners excludes Ukrainian journalists who were killed while fighting in the military and Ukrainian journalists who were killed in their homes during indiscriminate Russian shelling of Kyiv and other cities.

MapMF data shows that the first three months of the war were by far the most dangerous. In total, 60.7% of all documented attacks occurred between February 24 and May 24. Overall, this includes 21 cases of domestic and foreign journalists in Ukraine suffering serious injuries since the start of the war due to shelling, airstrikes, or gunfire from military forces. An additional 30 cases were documented in which reporting crews or individual journalists were physically attacked, including being caught in artillery fire or being shot at but escaping unharmed. In addition, at least eight journalists were kidnapped or abducted, with some undergoing torture and other abuses at the hands of Russian soldiers before being released or transferred to detention centres. Overall, physical attacks made up almost half (47.1%) of all documented alerts (66). and military forces were assessed to be the source of 37.1% of all documented alerts in 2022.

Journalists reporting from or near the front lines of the war were unsurprisingly at most risk. In total, 53.6% of all documented media freedom violations occurred within an active warzone, while a further 7.9% occurred while journalists were travelling between locations or on their way to or from the front lines. Online attacks against journalists made up a further 18.6% of documented cases, as Ukrainian journalists became the target of threats and intimidation from anonymous people, often sending emails or messages from Russian territory, over their reporting on the war. The MFRR also documented 13 cases of Ukrainian media outlets facing cyber-attacks, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, often attributed to Russian hackers. In the 90 alerts involving individual journalists or media workers in which the gender was known, male journalists were involved in 70 alerts (77.8%) and women journalists in 30 alerts (33.3%).

Some cases were documented in Ukraine that were not linked to the war, including the beating of four journalists and media workers by Ukrainian law enforcement officials as they were reporting on a protest. While the vast majority of media freedom violations recorded in 2022 were attributed to Russian military forces, the Ukrainian authorities were responsible for some cases. These involved wartime restrictions on the press, including the revocation of accreditation for journalists who allegedly broke rules on operating in combat areas in reporting on the recapture of Kherson, and the merging of all nationwide TV channels into a single government-run service. Media freedom groups have also raised concern over a bill which would hand the national regulator powers to invalidate online news outlets’ registrations, issue fines against them, and shut them down without a court order.

While overall 2022 has been a devastating year for media freedom, the country’s media sector remains afloat. While the war drags on and an end to hostilities does not appear in sight, safety, financial, and psychological pressures on Ukrainian journalists remain intense. However, the country’s journalistic community has also won acclaim across the world for the courage shown in rising to the challenge of covering the war in their home country.

 

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE

 

This section of the report written by IPI is part of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR), a Europe-wide mechanism which tracks, monitors and responds to violations of press and media freedom in EU Member States, Candidate Countries, and Ukraine. The project is co-funded by the European Commission.