Ukraine lifts restrictions on visit of foreign journalists to frontline

The President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, Sergiy Tomilenko, commented on the restrictions on the visit of foreign journalists to the frontline.

In an interview with the Eastern European bureau of Report, Tomilenko said that they prepared a request to the Headquarters in this regard: “I would like to emphasize that this news really raised a lot of questions, at the same time, we as the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine prepared a request to the Headquarters. The situation was resolved within 3 days after the request, and official information was given that the standard work of the press and the standard entry procedure to those areas were restored. Today there is an explanation that there is a technical disagreement on this issue. At the same time, I talked about it with the deputy minister. But I still think that in this great war, Russia has more means of obtaining information and intelligence. Therefore, in my opinion, many verification-type measures do not mean any negative attitude towards journalism.”

The President of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine also touched upon the professionalism of the press secretaries and press officers: “The same question is currently relevant in the network of press services in Ukraine. As a union of journalists, we are in touch with press secretaries and the Armed Forces of Ukraine. For the best organization, we want to hold trainings in which journalists will participate together with press secretaries. We want journalists to be seen not as threats, but as professionals who want to convey the truth to their audience. Therefore, as a union, we want to involve other journalists to pass on this experience to others. In this war, Ukraine should not bear the name of the same experience as Russia. Because Russia is an evil empire with a propaganda machine. We should be a part of the developed world, in which freedom of speech and respect for journalists is one of the main features. We, as the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine, naturally want to organize mutual meetings. We need officials who can understand journalists. It is impossible to limit information, give interviews and information to one part and not give it to another. We are ready to invite officials to our platform to understand the standards and get feedback from the journalistic community. I think that if there is a conflict with journalists, accordingly, such a situation will create a bad political culture that will not allow us to build our future.”