75 media workers killed since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in 2014–2023 – the IMI

Edit by the IMI

75 media workers have been killed since the beginning of the Russia–Ukraine war (in the period 2014–2023). This is evidenced by the Monitoring of Russian crimes against journalists and the media, carried out by the Institute of Mass Information.

"Since 2014, Russia's war on Ukraine has been going hand-in-hand with crimes against journalists and the suppression of independent journalism in the temporarily occupied Ukrainian territories and, with the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022, also in the territory controlled by the Ukrainian authorities. Murder, abduction, death threats, arrests of media workers – this is but a short list of crimes committed by the Russian occupiers against the media," says Kateryna Dyachuk, head of the IMI freedom of speech monitoring department.

Before the full-scale invasion, in the period 2014–2022, seven journalists were killed on Ukrainian land. Three of them died while reporting, and four were killed as combatants. All of them died in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. As you may know, in 2014–2015, three media workers were killed while performing their professional duty: Serhiy Nikolayev, Andrea Rocchelli, and his interpreter Andrei Mironov. Four more journalists were killed in action while defending Ukraine from the Russian invasion: Victor Hurnyak, Oleksandr Chernikov, Dmytro Labutkin, and Oleh Zadoyanchuk.

At the same time, since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Russia has killed 68 journalists. 10 of them died while reporting, 58 were killed as combatants (45) or died of Russian shelling or torture (13).

We remind you that two journalists were killed this September: Volodymyr Myronyuk and Andriy Kryshtal.

Note that the IMI monitoring does not cover the employees of Russian propaganda outlets who have died in Ukraine's occupied territories, since their work is not reporting, but media support for military aggression. Moreover, each of them entered the territory of Ukraine illegally. It is their actions that lead to the suppression of freedom of speech and pressure on true media workers who adhere to the freedom of speech principles and to ethical and professional standards. The propagandists must be justly punished for their actions, which led to the instigation of the war and to the mass extermination of Ukrainian citizens.