Occupiers open a representative office of the Russian Union of Journalists in Melitopol
The invaders have opened a representative office of the Russian Union of Journalists in the temporarily occupied Melitopol (Zaporizhzhia oblast).
On May 25, several propaganda media outlets and Telegram channels of the occupation authorities announced the opening of the RUJ office.
According to the Russian registers, the RUJE office has the following address: Melitopol, Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Avenue, 70. The organization has been officially registered with the inter-district inspection of the Federal Tax Service No. 1 in Zaporizhzhia oblast as the "Union of Journalists of Zaporizhzhia Oblast" (UJZO) (Union of Journalists of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, Regional Branch of the All-Russian Public Organization "Russian Union of Journalists", Ltd.) on April 23, 2023.
The representative office is headed by Sergey Korabelnikov from Omsk. According to the registers, he has ties to at least two other organizations / companies: the municipal unitary enterprise of the municipal entity "Resort City Anapa", and the media group "Anapa", whose main customer is the "administration of the municipal entity 'Resort City Anapa'".
According to the propagandists, 23 journalists have already been accepted into the "regional branch". However, this information could not be immediately confirmed. The RUJ website has no reports neither on the opening of a "regional representative office" nor on the increase in "union members".
The opening of the representative office was attended by representatives of the occupation administration of the Zaporizhzhia region: Serhiy Tolmachov, first deputy chairman of the Mass Media Commission of the Public Chamber of the Russian Federation, Alexander Malkevich (oversees the development of the propaganda media holding "Za!Media" in the temporarily occupied territories), as well as the director of the regional office of the state-sponsored propaganda news agency TARS, Andrei Tsitsinov.
As IMI reported, the International Federation of Journalists suspended with immediate effect the Russian Union of Journalists over its action since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its role in annexed Ukrainian territories.
Earlier, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) condemned the establishment of branches of the Russian Union of Journalists (RUJ) in Ukraine.
"Reporters Without Borders" released the investigation "The Malkevich Propaganda Machine, the Wagner-allied network in Ukraine", where they outline how the entrepreneur Oleksandr Malkevich created a propaganda machine in Ukraine's south in record time.
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