Tomilenko for The Geopost: Russia aims to defeat the West with propaganda and to eliminate Ukrainian journalists

Russia killed, tortured and imprisoned Ukrainian journalists during the war of occupation in Ukraine, says Sergiy Tomilenko, President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

In an interview with The Geopost, Tomilenko says that the spread of disinformation was the first stage of Vladimir Putin’s great war, while adding that he now seeks the victory of the Russians against the Western countries.

As a strategy, he says, Russia tries to spread disinformation in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, as well as in the Balkans.

 “Of course we see that independent media journalists are targeted by the Russians during this war. The Russians after the first days of occupying some territories or cities of Ukraine, tried to arrest, imprison Ukrainian journalists, tried to stop their work as journalists and created local propaganda media because they wanted to spread disinformation in the temporarily occupied territory and neutralize any alternative sources,” he says.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Mr. Tomilenko, you are president of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine during the war in Ukraine, is this a privilege or responsibility?

Tomilenko: Of course, it is a big responsibility and I felt this responsibility from the first minutes after the full-scale invasion, because we, all Ukrainians, were shocked. We didn’t think about such Russian rockets which shell into all Ukrainian regions, who exploded in Kiev and in different parts of the country.

It’s a big responsibility for me, because I’m the president of the biggest journalistic association in Ukraine, National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.

Before the beginning of full-scale invasion, we consisted of about 18,000 journalists, our network consisted of 24 regional branches, so we are a big organization. We received many requests from journalists who tried to survive from temporarily occupied territories, who wanted to survive, for them, as well as for their families. We organize now our work, I can compare it to as a hotline. We created our own network Journalist Solidarity Centers, it’s a special network of our Union to assist 100 and 100 requests on safety equipment, on safety training, on some salaries, some emergency grants for journalists, and it’s a big responsibility and a privilege to present brave Ukrainian journalists.

But I am thinking and I am afraid about the future and about how we can support Ukrainian journalists and we feel that Ukrainian journalists should have strength, should have feelings, should have possibility to be in our profession because one of the biggest challenges of this war which continued more as full-scale invasion more than two and a half years, biggest challenge is economical surviving of Ukrainian media and Ukrainian journalists in profession.

Now we see that maybe 30% or 40% of media are closed in Ukraine. Many journalists leave our profession, so it’s a big challenge because it was not a problem with unity of the journalist community at first months after full-scale invasion and nobody asked about salaries, about money, resources. Every Ukrainian journalist and editor tried to continue their work to publish news to cover war crimes of Russia, but media industry demand some resources, so it’s the biggest challenge now, but of course the constant challenge is safety or maybe dangerous conditions through the bombs.

The Geopost: We see a lot of disinformation spreading from Russia not only to Ukraine, but around the world, how do you help the Western media to stop spread of disinformation?

Tomilenko: Yes, we see that Russians use the information, maybe not information, but some IT propaganda as weapon in this war and we saw that it’s a very important component for Russians and development of propaganda. Spread of disinformation was the first stage of Putin’s big war and first of all he concentrated in developing a machine of propaganda in Russian and he now controls all Russians. He stopped, blocked any independent source of information and he now has a nation which trust his propaganda and which demands victory of Russians against Western countries.

Of course, we see that independent media Journalists are targets for Russians during this war. Russians after first days of occupation of some Ukrainian territories or cities, they tried to arrest, to imprison Ukrainian journalists, they tried to stop their journalist’s job and they created local propaganda media because they wanted to spread disinformation on temporarily occupied territory and neutralize any alternative sources.

As a strategy, Russia tries to spread disinformation on territory controlled by Ukrainian government, as well to spread in the Balkans and everywhere.

In Ukraine there are many media organizations, commission of journalists, different fact-checking organizations, who try to fight disinformation, to prepare some cases. For now, Ukrainian society is protected, or maybe not so sensitive to Russian mechanism of propaganda, but, it’s continuous challenge because it uses new technology, social media to invent new mechanism of spreading disinformation and western countries, western society, democratic society does not demonstrate such leadership as Russia demonstrates, how they use new technologies, how they try to use and how Russia try to use some agents in other countries to protect this disinformation and to present it not as disinformation but as alternative views.

I think that we should, as Ukrainian journalists, as Balkan journalists, as any journalist in democratic societies, we should exchange experience, we should stop Russian disinformation, we should ignore and ban the Russian propagandists. And one of the key initiatives of National Union of Journalists of Ukraine is the international tribunal on Russia as maybe a section of big tribunal, tribunal on Russia on crimes against press freedom and against journalists because Russia killed journalists, tortured journalists, imprisoned them and used such propaganda as weapons during the war. So, I think that it’s a good initiative for us and we as union represent voices of injured journalists or journalists who suffered from Russians because it’s our fight against impunity.

/The Geopost