Ukrainian police have confirmed that journalists are a priority target for Russian troops and occupation administrations, Temporary Investigative Commission (TIC) chair and deputy chair of the Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, Yevheniya Kravchuk, reported in a Facebook post following an in camera meeting between the Commission and law enforcement bodies.
Kravchuk said that this had been previously reported by journalists themselves and had now been confirmed by police representatives, Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets, and the Coordination HQ for POW Treatment.
“A bulletproof vest marked PRESS does not protect its wearer, but makes them a target. Russia deliberately ignores reporters’ immunity and exterminates those who track its crimes,” she wrote.
She also remarked on the attitude exhibited by Russian authorities and Federal Penitentiary Service (FPS) towards detained journalists, saying that Russia does not officially acknowledge that they were detained for their reporting work and considers them civilians while obstructing the efforts to free them and only giving international organisations limited access to prisons.
Kravchuk stressed that freeing imprisoned journalists is not a “prisoner swap”, as this term only applies to prisoners of war, while the journalists are civilians.
She also emphasised the threats faced by journalists in the territories under Ukrainian control, in particular in Kyiv, saying that Russian special services may recruit citizens of other states to commit crimes. As an example, she cited the international operation Enigma 2.0, which was exposed by Ukrainian police in February 2026 and involved a group created in Moldova that was preparing to assassinate multiple figures, including journalists.
According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, 127 proceedings for crimes against journalists and media workers are under investigation as of today. The deaths of 25 non-combatants (including nine foreign citizens) have been documented, and 48 civilian media professionals (23 of them foreign citizens) have been injured. The unlawful detention or imprisonment of 19 civilian journalists has also been confirmed.
Based on the findings of the investigations, 24 servicemembers of the Russian Armed Forces and Russia’s Federal Security Service officials have been notified of suspicion. Five people have been convicted.
Yevhenia Kravchuk said that these data may differ from the statistics reported by media organisations (such as the Institute of Mass Information and the NUJU) due to different counting methods and difficulties associated with tracking crimes committed in the occupied territories.
She added that the TIC would summarise the collected information for further cooperation with international institutions. There is also an agreement with law enforcement bodies to hold an open Commission meeting in the coming months, which will discuss Viktoria Roshchyna’s case.
According to the Institute of Mass Information, Russia committed 901 crimes against journalists and the media in Ukraine in the four years and one month since the start of the full-scale war. These included the deaths of 29 civilian journalists, 46 journalists being wounded, and 29 incidents of kidnapping, with 26 journalists remaining in Russian prisons today.
