Chernihiv Miliatary Administration chair wants to cut financing to a communal TV channel

The chair of the Chernihiv city military administration, Dmytro Bryzhynsky, says that he signed an decree to amend the budget, cutting the financing of the city-owned company "Broadcasting Agency Novy Chernihiv".

Bryzhynsky made a post about this on Facebook.

He explained that the City Council was using the communal TV channel for PR and that the money needed to be reallocated to the Ukrainian Armed Forces instead.

Bryzhynsky's post only included the first page of the decree, which does not make it clear on what basis and by what sum the channel's funding would be cut.

Dmytro Bryzhynsky's press office declined to comment to the IMI representative or provide the full decree.

The TV channel's director, Natalia Levochko, considers the official's actions an attack on freedom of speech in the border city.

"It is strange to hear a military officer allege that the community does not need the media outlet that worked during active combat in Chernihiv," she said in a comment to IMI.

Levochko added that in February 2024, Bryzhynsky did not sign financial papers for the city-owned company for two weeks.

She also noted that she does not understand the legal contents of the decree in Bryzhinsky's Facebook post.

According to the channel's director, the local 2024 budget only provides funding for protected expenditure items – wages, taxes, utilities, broadcasting services – in the amount of 8 million 430 thousand UAH.

As the IMI representative notes, the confrontation between the military administration (headed by Dmytro Bryzhynsky) and the Chernihiv City Council (headed by Acting Chairman Oleksandr Lomako) regarding the distribution of spheres of influence and the budget has been going on since early 2023.