Ukraine’s civil society organisations called on the government to ensure adequate funding for Suspilne Broadcasting in 2027: UAH 3,8 bln, which amounts to 0.2% of the total budget expenditure from the previous year excluding security and defence spending.

The organisations released a statement to this effect, which the Institute of Mass Information endorsed.

The statement stresses that over the 10 years of its existence, Suspilne Boradcasting has transformed into a modern multimedia corporation “delivering content 24/7 from and to every corner of Ukraine.”

Still, despite all the reforms and evolution, the lack of consistent state funding remains an issue undermining its independence.

The organisations emphasised that producing Ukrainain content was a strategic task on par with military defense of the country.

“The fighting in the media space — the cognitive warfare — is just as much a part of this war, no less frightening or deadly than drones and guided bombs. . . . Producing domestic content in the Ukrainian language must rank as a priority second only to producing weapons. . . . Ukraine must also be invested in clearing the benchmark clusters on its path to European integration, and ensuring Suspilne’s financial and institutional independence is one such benchmark,” the statement reads.

The organisations called for Suspilne to be granted UAH 3,8 bln in funding, as stipulated by law.

“This sum would allow Suspilne to not merely keep functioning, but to invest more in producing domestic content, both through Suspilne itself and through independent producers adhering to Suspilne’s standards. We firmly believe that adequate funding for Suspilne, and for the media and culture sector as a whole, is a long-term investment — one that will, among other things, help Ukraine overcome the impact of the war in the future,” the statement concludes.

The Institute of Mass Information shares the full statement

Civil society organisations’ statement on 2027 funding for Suspilne Broadcasting

19 January 2027 marks 10 years since the founding of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine (Suspilne), the sole public media provider in Ukraine. Over these 10 years, an inefficient and morally outdated state broadcaster has undergone a profound transformation into a modern multimedia corporation, delivering content 24/7 from and to every corner of Ukraine. It does so both through traditional linear media, providing news in places where Internet connectivity is unstable and guided bombs are raining down, and by engaging audiences on the major online platforms. News by Suspilne are available on Threads, YouTube and YouTube Shorts, while Brobaks fills the crucial niche of children’s programming. Films such as 9:20 eConsistution, The Natural Border, Collapse: How Ukrainians Destroyed an Evil Empire, etc. document key events in Ukraine’s recent history and its struggle for independence. Videos from Suspilne’s Media Library regularly go viral on social media.

Suspilne’s transformation has taken place alongside a profound transformation of the state itself. There had been no precedent for a public broadcaster being created in wartime and developed throughout a full-scale war in Central and Eastern Europe, where such companies were built on the foundations of previous state-owned ones. Nor in Ukraine, for that matter, which started out not with Balcerowicz-style reforms, but rather with a deep and artificially enforced attachment to Russia. Ukraine’s case is genuinely unique. Over this decade, Suspilne has successfully gone through the election of three successive supervisory and management boards, building the institutional stability and independence of an institution so important to Ukrainian democracy. Internal reforms and resource optimisation efforts have been carried out, and large-scale digitisation of the archives has begun. Still, ensuring the institutional independence of the public broadcaster has remained a chronically unresolved problem since Suspilne’s founding. The Council of Europe’s recommendations dating back to 1994, the European Media Freedom Act, and, finally, the European Commission’s reports all consistently insist that Suspilne’s financial independence is part of the institution’s overall independence. Yet over 10 years, the state has failed to meet even its minimum obligations, and a significant share of the broadcaster’s transformation has been funded by international partners.

The war has posed a challenge not only for the entire culture sector but for the Culture Ministry as well, since budget spending now prioritises Ukraine’s defence. In this situation, spending every single hryvnia is a great dilemma. At the same time, the war does not begin and end with fighting for Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Crimea. The fighting in the media space — the cognitive warfare — is just as much a part of this war, no less frightening or deadly than drones and guided bombs. Lacking any dramatic success on the front line, the aggressor has been consistently and deliberately using old, reliable methods of influence to undermine international support for Ukraine and Ukrainian society’s unity, sparing neither methods nor means. Everyone is a target, regardless of age or gender, but children and teenagers, those who are supposed to rebuild this country after the war, are the most vulnerable. By normalising the image of an NKVD enforcer in Masha and the Bear or luring young people in with viral tracks such as “Sigma Boy”, Russia is doing everything it can to keep our youth locked within its own cultural code, weakening their capacity for future resistance.

Producing domestic content in the Ukrainian language must rank as a priority second only to producing weapons. And it is Ukraine itself, first and foremost, that has a stake in this. The world has an interest in security, but Ukraine alone cares about Ukraine’s prosperity. Ukraine must also be invested in clearing the benchmark clusters on its path to European integration, and ensuring Suspilne’s financial and institutional independence is one such benchmark.

The law stipulates that Suspilne should receive 0.2% of the total budget expenditure from the previous year. That said, we understand that national defence is the key line item in the budget. We are therefore calling for Suspilne’s 2027 funding to amount to the 0.2% set out in the law, excluding security and defence spending (according to Cabinet of Ministers data) — that is, 3.8 billion hryvnias. This sum would allow Suspilne to not merely keep functioning, but to invest more in producing domestic content, both through Suspilne itself and through independent producers adhering to Suspilne’s standards.

We firmly believe that adequate funding for Suspilne, and for the media and culture sector as a whole, is a long-term investment — one that will, among other things, help Ukraine overcome the impact of the war in the future.

Signed:

Centre for Democracy and the Rule of Law

NGO Institute of Mass Information

NGO Women in Media

NGO Ukrainian Institute of Media and Communications

NGO Human Rights Platform

NGO DII Ukraine

Souspilnist Foundation

NGO Digital Security Lab

Pylyp Orlyk Institute of Democracy

NGO Detector Media

OPORA Civil Society Network

Pylyp Orlyk Foundation

Resistance Movement Research Centre

Lackmus Centre for Information Analysis

ANTS National Interests Advocacy Network