After avoiding criticism of the authorities at the start of the war, Ukrainian journalists have begun reporting allegations of corruption by officials again. But wartime censorship and the army’s role in protecting their country from an existential threat has made reporting on the military a challenge.
Journalist Yuriy Nikolov was leaked evidence that army food procurement contracts had been inflated in January. But conscious of not wanting to harm the war effort, he said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda that he went to great lengths not to publish them.
But when he approached defence officials with the findings and found their response “was not what it should be”, he said he sensed that the matter was not going to be pursued officially and decided he had to run the story.
In the contracts, several food staples were as much as three times the supermarket price, with a single egg costing the equivalent of 37p. The payment for the contract was due on 1 February. “I knew I had to publish them before the payment was made,” said Nikolov. “For this [much] money, they could buy weapons. If that much was actually stolen, we could lose the war [if it carried on].”
Nikolov said that he and other investigative journalists paused their activities at the beginning of the war and had gradually resumed work in the autumn. “I will say that during the invasion, I have turned down many stories,” he said.
The contracts’ publication in late January by the news site ZN,UA was a tipping point, along with the news on the same day that a deputy infrastructure minister had been arrested for siphoning aid money intended to buy generators.
Sources in the presidential administration said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was furious, according to Ukrainska Pravda journalists. It prompted the dismissal of 15 senior government and regional officials, including two senior defence officials.
Anti-corruption measures are one of the requirements for Ukraine’s EU membership status and Zelenskiy was responding to disquiet in wider Ukrainian society over corruption at a time when most are regularly donating money to aid the war effort.
For Mykhailo Tkach, a leading investigative journalist who investigated several of the 15 dismissed officials, including the now former member of Zelenskiy’s inner circle, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the action taken by the president was a sign of positive change.
“It is a signal for journalists that they are heard as the ‘fourth power’ [and] a signal for other powerful people that there is no tolerance for corruption,” said Tkach. “In order to defeat the external enemy, it is necessary to simultaneously overcome the internal one – corruption.”
“Regarding [press freedom], as a journalist, I am in such a situation for the first time. I feel doubly responsible for my work and every word I say,” said Tkach.
But despite the renewed vigour to investigate government officials, reporting on the military itself is curtailed by a combination of the wartime media restrictions, introduced on 3 March, and a widely shared sense that Ukraine’s army is protecting journalists too.
The wartime decree includes a ban on reporting the progress of active and planned battles, revealing a soldier’s name or face without permission, and reporting on the whereabouts and movement of equipment and troops and propaganda or justification of Russia’s war. Under the measures, Ukrainian soldiers are also prohibited from talking to the media without permission. A breach can lead to the removal of accreditation for frontline areas.
“We discussed [the restrictions] at the beginning of the war, among our media circles, but we decided to accept most of them because it’s a matter of our survival and all of us knew what it was like to live and work in a war,” said Oksana Romaniuk, director of the Institute for of Mass Information, which works to protect and boost journalism. She says the community has successfully made the military compromise on some of the measures.
While some of the restrictions have been easy to adapt, the state has a monopoly on significant information because of the war – such as the total number of casualties, which is now classified information. Ukraine’s top general said the total was 13,000 in late November but graveyards across Ukraine, and the number of social media posts paying tribute to the dead soldiers, indicate the number is much higher.
“I think we will publish it when we know it, but again it will be discussed among ourselves first,” said Romaniuk.
Meanwhile, there has only been one investigation alleging wrongdoing inside Ukraine’s military (as opposed to investigations about government offices).
In August, Anna Myroniuk, an investigative journalist at the Kyiv Independent, published an investigation into systematic abuse and misappropriation within Ukraine’s International Legion, a unit for foreign nationals. The Kyiv Independent ran an editorial explaining their decision to publish the information.
“It was kind of bit of a brave move [on our part] to be the first,” said Myroniuk. “We spent a long time thinking about how to better present the story so it didn’t reveal any state secrets … and so it couldn’t be used by Russian propaganda.”
“The need to [investigate wrongdoing] right now is even greater … every single hryvnia right now must be spent on the defence of Ukraine,” said Myroniuk.
Her findings have yet to receive any concrete reaction from the general staff, the defence ministry or investigative bodies.
While investigations of the state and government conduct are growing in online media, TV media, with the exception of the public broadcaster, has become a de facto mouthpiece for the presidential administration, said Romaniuk.
All the main TV channels have merged into one channel known as the Telemarathon, which broadcasts uniform news content across all channels. The editorial policy is closely connected with the incumbent government and presidential administration. It almost never criticises or questions the authorities.
The Telemarathon started as an emergency measure at the beginning of the invasion. But with its regular cohort of top officials and experts close to the president, it has also raised questions about freedom of speech.
“I think it’s served its purpose and now it has to go,” said Romaniuk of the Telemarathon. “There are two media spaces in Ukraine right now, online and TV.”
