Russian aggression, PO’s media policy, Telegram channels: media protessionals list their key “enemies” in 2025

Journalists and news outlet editors from all regions across Ukraine outlined a list of key factors perceived to have posed the biggest threat to the work of the media and adherence to professional standards in 2025 in an open-ended online questionnaire-type survey conducted by the Institute of Mass Information (IMI) on 3–20 December 2025.*

IMI analysts note that the list is not about “enemies” in the literal sense, but about the sources of systemic pressure that the journalism community perceives to affect the quality of reporting, editorial independence, and trust in the media as the war drags on and the financial sitation is unstable.

The top five “enemies of the media” in 2025, as reported by the media professionals who took part in the IMI survey, are as follows:

1. The respondents most often mentioned Russia and its full-scale war against Ukraine as a systemic factor that defines most of the risks to freedom of speech, the safety of journalists, and the media sector’s stability. Moreover, the respondents pinpointed a new threat — Russian FPV drones deliberately hunting down filming crews. This makes the work of war reporters much more dangerous than it was in the previous years of the war.

2. The second-biggest pressure factors reported by the surveyed media professionals were related to the work of the President’s Office and some of its officials, namely Andriy Yermak. The respondents associated with him the centralisation of media policies, the functioning of the telethon, as well as with smear campaigns targeting independent media, in particular those done through unofficial channels of communication.

3. The journalists listed anonymous Telegram channels as a challenge in its own right, believing it to have a significant impact on the media environment. The respondents associate these channels’ operations with the erosion of professional standards, the prevalence of clickbait, emotional manipulation, and the blurring of the boundaries between journalism and blogging.

4. The media professionals identified funding shortage as another structural problem which has direct impact on news outlets’ ability to survive. These include the rolling-back of US aid programs (including USAID), the lack of new grant opportunities from other donors, and the de-facto absence of a full-fledged advertising market.

5. Another risk factor identified by the respondents is the growing prominence of artificial intelligence tools (in particular large language models such as ChatGPT). The journalists blame this for the surge of fake news and deepfakes, as well as the emergence of self-proclaimed “media actors” who use AI to produce swaths of low-quality content, confusing the audience and making it difficult to distinguish between journalism and manipulative content.

The survey revealed some other critical threats that shape an aggressive environment for media professionals to work in. In particular, the general unwillingness of government bodies to share information has become a challenge. The surveyed journalists complained about ignored queries and the “military secret” excuse being abused to withhold socially important information.

The survey also identified some officials bearing personal responsibility for the decline of the media in their respective regions:

• MPs (in particular, Ihor Fris) were criticised for legislative initiatives that shut down public registers and create precedents for banning coverage of court hearings.
• Dmytro Bryzhynskyi (head of the Chernihiv OMA) was most despised by the respondents from Chernihiv for the blocking of funding for local broadcasters and isolating the media.

IMI experts say that the survey findings reflect a profound transformation of the media environment, wherein the issue of survival is increasingly intertwined with issues of quality, independence, and trust in journalism.

*The sample consisted of 135 journalists who took part in a non-anonymous survey: the respondents filling out the questionnaire were identified (they left their personal data, which prevents anonymity and allows us to vet them as belonging to the professional group). In terms of gender, the sample included 82 women (60.7%) and 53 men (39.3%). By locaton, the sample covers all regions across Ukraine, which provides wider territorial coverage and variety of contexts (however, “all regions” being featured in the survey does not imply equal representedness: rather, it emphasises the geographical scope of involvement). The survey was conducted on 3 to 20 December 2025.

The Institute of Mass Information (IMI) is a civil society organization specializing in the media, operating since 1996. IMI defends the rights of journalists, studies the media landscape and reports on media-related events, fights propaganda and disinformation, and provides media workers with safety equipment for trips to combat areas (since the start of the Russo–Ukrainian war in 2014).

IMI carries out the only monitoring study of freedom of speech in Ukraine, keeps a list of transparent and responsible online media outlets, and tracks Russia’s media crimes in the war on Ukraine. IMI has representatives in 20 oblasts of Ukraine and runs a network of Media Hubs that provide journalists with unfailing support. IMI’s partners include Reporters Without Borders (RSF); the organization is also a member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX).