Yaroslav Yurchyshyn, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Freedom of Speech, has submitted an amendment to the draft budget to divert 500 million hryvnias from funding allocated for the United News telethon towards rebuilding media outlets damaged by Russian forces, Yurchyshyn reported in a Facebook post.
The MP said that he proposed to direct the money to the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting for a new budget programme, assisting the news outlets damaged by Russia with recovery. The decision to initiate the process independently was made after a Committee meeting revealed a lack of necessary government programmes or support mechanisms.
“The telethon needs shutting down, and the media outlets damaged by Russian attacks need rebuilding. The Freedom of Speech Committee has made it clear that the government doesn’t see itself as having any role in the process of restoring media outlets that Russia is destroying. The Recovery Agency is unable to cover this vector, and the Ministry of Culture doesn’t have the necessary programmes or mechanisms either. So, we decided to initiate this process ourselves,” Yaroslav Yurchyshyn said.
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He added that diverting even part of the funds would allow the state to demonstrate its willingness to support independent newsrooms and to attract additional resources from business and international partners.
“Ideally, we’d take all of the 1.6 billion hryvnias away from the telethon, shut it down, and bring back Priamyi TV and Channel 5, both of which have suffered because of the war. And of course Espreso TV, too. That would fulfil the EU’s recommendation and put a stop to the nationalisation of television,” Yurchyshyn stressed.
The Institute of Mass Information has recorded 109 instances of Ukarinian media offices and newsrooms being damaged in the course of Russian aggression as of September 2026.
Previously
Over the past few years, various institutions and experts have repeatedly called on Ukraine to reconsider the format of the nationwide United News telethon and to provide viewers with a wider choice of news sources.
In September 2022, Germany’s Ambassador to Ukraine Anka Feldhusen said that the EU had privately urged Kyiv to move away from the “single marathon” format and to give viewers a choice.
In 2023, Yaroslav Yurchyshyn stated that the telethon needed improvement, since the poor quality of news was pushing people to seek out alternative sources of information, often resulting in them ending up on anonymous Telegram channels that easily manipulate data.
In 2024, the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) called upon Ukrainian authorities to reconsider the format of the united telethon and consider closing this project altogether.