{"id":27082,"date":"2023-06-26T12:00:55","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T19:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=27082"},"modified":"2023-06-26T12:00:56","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T19:00:56","slug":"ukraine-blocks-journalists-from-front-lines-with-escalating-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2023\/06\/26\/ukraine-blocks-journalists-from-front-lines-with-escalating-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"UKRAINE BLOCKS JOURNALISTS FROM FRONT LINES WITH ESCALATING CENSORSHIP"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"DONETSK<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A member of the press talks with Ukrainian military members before departure on a combat mission towards Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on February 8, 2023.\u00a0Photo: Yevhenii Zavhorodnii\/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wild how little of what\u2019s happening is being chronicled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Alice Speri<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 22 2023, 6:00 a.m. (TheIntercept.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AFTER UKRAINIAN FORCES regained control of the port city of Kherson last November, following eight months of Russian occupation, some journalists entered the liberated city within hours. Without formal permission to be there, they documented the jubilant crowds welcoming soldiers with hugs and Ukrainian flags. Ukrainian officials, who tightly control press access to the front lines, responded by revoking the journalists\u2019 press credentials, claiming that they had \u201cignored existing restrictions.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the months since then, as Ukraine has sought to liberate more territory occupied by Russia, the Ukrainian government has intensified its efforts to control the narrative of the war by tightening journalists\u2019 access<\/a> to the conflict. \u201cAfter that, things started getting worse. \u2026 They have tried to place more control on journalists,\u201d Katerina Sergatskova, editor-in-chief of Zaborona Media, an independent Ukrainian publication, told The Intercept. \u201cNow it\u2019s really hard to make reports from Kherson, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion last year, Ukrainian authorities have threatened, revoked, or denied press credentials of journalists working for half a dozen Ukrainian and foreign news outlets because of their coverage, the news outlet Semafor reported<\/a> earlier this month. In one recent example, Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Defense did not renew the press credentials of a Ukraine-based photographer who accused the country\u2019s security services of subjecting him to interrogations, a lie detector test, and accusations that he was working against Ukraine\u2019s \u201cnational interest.\u201d Government officials restored<\/a> Anton Skyba\u2019s accreditation last week, following a pressure campaign by colleagues and press freedom advocates<\/a>, who have been denouncing tightening restrictions<\/a> on media access to the front lines. But the episode put a spotlight on tensions between Ukrainian authorities and the journalists covering the conflict that have quietly escalated in recent months. Veteran war correspondents, for their part, are accusing Ukrainian officials of making reporting on the reality of the war, with rare exceptions, nearly impossible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe Ukrainian government has made it virtually impossible for journalists to do real front line reportage.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve covered four wars, and I\u2019ve never seen such a chasm between the drama and intensity and historic import of the reality of the conflict on the one hand, and the superficiality and meagerness of its documentation by the press on the other,\u201d Luke Mogelson, a contributing writer for the New Yorker, told The Intercept. \u201cIt\u2019s wild how little of what\u2019s happening is being chronicled. And the main reason, though not the only one, is that the Ukrainian government has made it virtually impossible for journalists to do real front line reportage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mogelson added that the restrictions come from military and political brass and run counter to rank-and-file soldiers\u2019 desire to share their experiences. \u201cThe guys who are actually out doing the killing and dying and enduring the misery of the front are almost always thrilled to have journalists witness what they\u2019re going through,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s not just politically or ethically problematic for Ukraine to prevent journalists from seeing the war. It\u2019s also quite cruel to the Ukrainian men who are being forced to conduct it in total silence and obscurity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukraine\u2019s Ministry of Defense, which issues press accreditation and controls journalists\u2019 access to the front lines, did not respond to The Intercept\u2019s questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some Ukrainian journalists have also warned that military handlers\u2019 tight oversight of journalists is skewing coverage of the war. \u201cIf a soldier tells me, \u2018I hate this war so much,\u2019 the press officer asks him to reply, \u2018Yes, the war is hard, but we are keeping our spirits up,\u2019\u201d Skyba, a freelancer who regularly works with Canada\u2019s Globe and Mail newspaper, told the Committee to Protect Journalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the narrative much of the Ukrainian public is getting. Following Russia\u2019s invasion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ordered a 24-hour, unified \u201cnews telethon\u201d<\/a> in which some of the country\u2019s major broadcasters \u2014 two that are public and the rest owned by oligarchs \u2014 provide war coverage in alternating, six-hour blocks. Late last year, Zelenskyy also signed legislation<\/a> giving the government vast powers over the media; the European Federation of Journalists had called an early draft of the bill \u201cworthy of the worst authoritarian regimes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sergatskova said that it has become increasingly difficult for independent publications like hers to cover the war \u2014 at a time when Ukrainians are increasingly turning to the news seeking coverage of the war ravaging their country. A survey<\/a> published earlier this year suggests that trust in media among the public is currently at 57 percent, up from 32 percent before the invasion. \u201cThis is good for journalism,\u201d said Sergatskova. \u201cBut it\u2019s a big responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent op-ed<\/a>, Sergatskova accused authorities of manipulating an opaque accreditation system to limit coverage of the conflict and of favoring foreign media while overlooking local outlets. (Zelenskyy, for instance, has given plenty of interviews to international news organizations but none to Ukrainian ones, she noted.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUkraine has been fighting two wars for a long time. One is against Russia and Russian colonialism. The second is the war for democracy,\u201d she wrote. \u201cMany people are sabotaging this war for democracy. This is particularly evident in the relationship between the government and the media.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Residents crowd around to take basic medicine supplies at an aid hub after Ukrainian forces regained control of Kherson, Ukraine, on Nov. 21, 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Chris McGrath\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTransparency Is Messy\u201d<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The clash between reporters and Ukrainian authorities burst into open view just as the Ukrainian military embarks on a much-anticipated counteroffensive, a phase of the conflict that some journalists warn risks only being told through official accounts and tightly controlled access. While lobbying for greater military assistance throughout the war, Ukrainian authorities have carefully managed what is disclosed about their performance on the field: for instance, keeping a tight lid on the number of casualties among their forces. Such effort to control the narrative is not comparable to Russia\u2019s\u00a0full-scale propaganda campaign<\/a>\u00a0or its crackdown on journalists, including the March arrest and ongoing detention of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich. Many Russian journalists have also been forced to flee the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But some journalists warn that the Ukrainian government\u2019s approach to the press is growing increasingly authoritarian. The Ukrainian military doesn\u2019t have a formal embed system \u2014 the process by which war journalists cover conflicts by tagging along troops in the field \u2014 and most press access consists of short, chaperoned visits to military positions further back than the actual front lines. As a result, stories about the front lines are often told by journalists visiting recently liberated areas or as secondhand accounts relayed by military leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The war has largely been waged using long-range missiles, artillery, and airstrikes, and it\u2019s true that the release of information from the field could pose serious operational risks for the Ukrainian military, some journalists who have reported from the country concede. But seasoned war reporters know how to navigate such complexities, and it would be easier for them to avoid careless exposure of sensitive information if they had better access to the military.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf the Ukrainians had an embed system, that would actually give them much more supervision over operational security concerns,\u201d Mogelson said. \u201cBut they don\u2019t have anything like that. All they have are these press officers who aren\u2019t really press officers, who are there not to facilitate, but to prevent journalists from seeing, writing about, and photographing what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Some exceptions, like Mogelson\u2019s own vivid account<\/a> of life in the trenches published by the New Yorker in May, were not authorized by officials with the Ministry of Defense, who threatened to revoke the credentials of both Mogelson and Ukrainian photographer Maxim Dondyuk after the story was published. (Natalie Raabe, a spokesperson for the New Yorker, wrote in a statement to The Intercept, \u201cOur writer and photographer had permission from the battalion commander; their press credentials remain in place.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those critical of the limitations imposed on journalists argue that they have less to do with operational security than with an effort to control the narrative. Authorities have retaliated against journalists who have offered a more honest, if unflattering, view of the impact<\/a> of the war on troops, and against at least one military commander<\/a> who shared a frank but pessimistic view of the war effort, even as some Ukrainian officials have argued that such authentic assessments are needed to pressure allies into providing the aid the country desperately needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTheir posture toward the press is very short-sighted, and ultimately, beyond whether or not it\u2019s anti-democratic, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s in their interest,\u201d said Mogelson. \u201cTransparency is messy. Not every story is going to have immediate practical benefits for Ukraine or its armed forces, and that\u2019s what they want. That\u2019s why they\u2019re so obsessed with controlling the narrative. But that control comes at a long-term cost of an erosion of trust in any news about the conflict, both among Ukrainians and, crucially, among the Americans and Europeans on whose continued support and solidarity the war effort depends.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Journalists and residents stand as smoke rises after an attack by Russian army in Odessa, Ukraine, on April 3, 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Bulent Kilic\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closing In on Journalists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian military authorities rushed to accredit thousands of media workers covering the conflict in the wake of Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in February 2022. It was an especially dangerous assignment, with 17 journalists<\/a> killed so far, the vast majority of them in the first few weeks of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within a couple months, Ukrainian authorities began to pull credentials from reporters whose coverage they didn\u2019t like, including Thomas Gibbons-Neff of the New York Times, who was the lead reporter<\/a> on an April 2022 story about Ukrainian forces using banned cluster munitions, and New York Times photojournalist Tyler Hicks. Yet the revocation of credentials really ramped up after Ukraine regained control of swaths of Russian-occupied territory late last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many of the journalists whose credentials were revoked more recently had at some point worked in Russian-held territories, sometimes as far back as 2014, when Russia first invaded Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities prohibit travel to occupied territory from Russia, even as it is virtually impossible to get there from Ukraine today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That appears to have been the justification for authorities to revoke the accreditation of Italian journalists Andrea Sceresini and Alfredo Bosco in February, although officials never provided the two with an explanation. Instead, the freelancers, on assignment for the Italian broadcaster RAI, were traveling from Bakhmut to Kramatorsk when they received an email from the Ministry of Defense, warning them that their credentials had been suspended. The journalists, who had covered the conflict on and off since February 2022 and who had previously reported in Ukraine following the 2014 invasion, later learned from local colleagues that authorities had accused them of being collaborators and propagandists for the Russians. That day, a local journalist they had hired for an assignment canceled last minute, citing the same rumor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sceresini said he and Bosco were told by the Ministry of Defense to wait for an interview with the Security Service of Ukraine that never materialized. They barely left their apartment in Kramatorsk, wary of the risks of being labeled collaborators in an active war zone, until Italian Embassy officials told them to move to Kyiv for their safety. There, they contacted colleagues, lawyers, and diplomats to try to understand why their credentials had been suspended; informally, Italian authorities told them that Ukrainian officials had taken issue with trips the two had made to Russian-held territory after 2014. Sceresini reported from both sides of the conflict at the time. In particular, he worked on an investigative documentary<\/a> about the 2014 killing of an Italian photojournalist by Ukrainian forces, and on a 2015 dispatch<\/a> that highlighted the divide in communities split by their allegiances to Russia or Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThey are running a check on all journalists. And one by one, those who are not perfectly dutiful to the directives and Kyiv\u2019s political line are out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the time, you could go from Kyiv to Donetsk by bus,\u201d Sceresini noted, but even though he had traveled there legally, Ukrainian authorities banned him from the country for five years in 2015, and he did not return until last year. After his and Bosco\u2019s credentials were revoked this year, they learned of half a dozen Italian journalists and others<\/a> dealing with revoked or denied credentials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey are running a check on all journalists,\u201d Sceresini said. \u201cAnd one by one, those who are not perfectly dutiful to the directives and Kyiv\u2019s political line are out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In February, Ukrainian officials introduced additional restrictions on journalists: a controversial zone system<\/a> divided the country into green, yellow, and red areas, with the latter accessible to civilians but off limits to journalists. Media advocates condemned the policy, warning that it unduly restricted access to relatively safe areas while also creating confusion about where it was actually dangerous for journalists to work. Two journalists were killed after the zone system was introduced; there had been no journalist deaths for nearly a year prior to that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authorities later quietly revised those restrictions, substituting them with a process that critics say is both arbitrary and confusing. Now regional commanders make decisions about press access on a case-by-case basis. In May, military authorities also canceled all existing credentials and made journalists apply for new ones; several journalists said their new credentials were denied.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s chaos,\u201d said Sergatskova, the editor-in-chief of Zaborona Media, \u201cand it\u2019s getting more complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Journalists take photographs of the destroyed Ukrainian Antonov An-225 \u201cMriya\u201d cargo aircraft at the Hostomel airport on April 8, 2022, in Hostomel, Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Alexey Furman\/Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Narrative War<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Until recently, local and foreign journalists alike have been reticent to openly discuss their conflict with authorities, for different reasons. Local journalists \u2014 many of whom have joined the military or left the country \u2014 have, at times, hesitated to criticize the government, split between allegiance to their profession and to their nation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian journalists \u201cfeel that they are part of this, part of the Ukrainian nation struggling for survival,\u201d said Kyrylo Loukerenko, executive director of the independent Hromadske Radio, \u201cso this is a very difficult situation for us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He stressed that some journalists are choosing to scale back their criticism rather than responding to top-down pressure to do so, out of concern that any criticism would feed into Russian propaganda efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s more about self-control,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you are trying to be critical, people just ask, \u2018Are you patriotic?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Karol Luczka, Eastern Europe monitoring and advocacy officer with the International Press Institute, said that, in addition to self-censorship stemming from a \u201cmoral obligation towards your country,\u201d journalists are also aware that certain topics will earn them additional scrutiny from the authorities. \u201cIdeas like, there\u2019s a civil war, or there are people who are pro-Russian \u2026 these are very touchy issues,\u201d he said. \u201cIf a reporter either knowingly or unknowingly starts using these kinds of talking points in their report, it\u2019s going to be something that Ukrainian authorities look at.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sergatskova added that for Ukrainian journalists, the choice of stories is also a function of priorities. While she noted that there has been some investigative journalism<\/a> by local outlets exposing corruption among military leaders, many Ukrainian journalists are consumed by documenting Russian crimes<\/a>. \u201cThis is something that is really important for us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The government\u2019s restrictions put foreign journalists in a similarly delicate position, with some publications prioritizing access at the cost of pushing back against the rules imposed by officials. \u201cSome of us are not guiltless in this either. Some are kind of going along with it,\u201d said Mogelson. \u201cThere\u2019s a general reluctance to alienate the Ukrainian government because what little access we do have is contingent on staying in its good graces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CONTACT THE AUTHOR:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Alice Speri<\/a>alice.speri@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a>@alicesperi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A member of the press talks with Ukrainian military members before departure on a combat mission towards Bakhmut in Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine on February 8, 2023.\u00a0Photo: Yevhenii Zavhorodnii\/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images \u201cIt\u2019s wild how little of what\u2019s happening is being chronicled.\u201d Alice Speri June 22 2023, 6:00 a.m…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[723],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27082"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27086,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27082\/revisions\/27086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}