Russians dismantle Siverskodonetsk building that used to house Zmist office

The Russians in Siverskodonetsk (Luhansk oblast) demolished the multi-storey building the first floor of which housed Siverskyi Donets Media Crisis Center and the office of the media outlet Zmist, founded by the Center, as reported on Facebook by Olena Nizhelska head of the NGO Siverskyi Donets.

She posted a video showing an excavator digging through the rubble at the site where the media center used to be, and captioned it with a quote from a poem by Lina Kostenko: “Yet we must live on. We must live on somehow.”

In her comment to the IMI, Olena Nizhelska stressed the importance of media support for Siverskodonetsk despite the difficult situation.

Which is why the media outlet Zmist, founded in 2020, continues operations after relocation and has preserved its identity despite the numerous challenges.

"Zmist focuses on stories about people from Siverskodonetsk – those who remained in the city and those who were forced to leave," Olena Nizhelska said.

In September 2024, the staff of the online news outlet Zmist Tyzhnya, which relocated from Siverskodonetsk (Luhansk oblast), faced a wave of cyber attacks targeting the journalists and their accounts.