Journalists gathered in Kyiv to learn to report on occupation

Meetings with journalists and activists who had endured Russian captivity were named by participants as highlights of the programme. Journalists had a chance to speak with Maksym Butkevych, Lenia Umierova, and Oleh Baturin.

To make the programme even more useful, it was enriched with workshops on digital security and the nuances of interviewing people with traumatic experiences. To deepen their expertise, journalists also met with experts on child indoctrination conducted by Russia and on transitional justice.

To look at occupation from different perspectives, participants attended two film screenings: Special Operation, a film about the weeks when Chernobyl was occupied by Russian forces in spring 2022, and Iron Butterflies, a documentary about the tragedy of MH17, shot down by Russians over the Donetsk region in summer 2014.

As part of the workshop, journalists visited the exhibition Kherson. The Steppe Holds at Mystetskyi Arsenal. The project’s narrative is based on three films — Ukrainian Sheriffs, The Editorial Office, and Volcano — created by Roman Bondarchuk and Darya Averchenko as a tribute to their native Kherson region. These films were made before Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, and now the footage preserves the memory of territories, large parts of which were or are currently under occupation.

In the end, participants formed cross-border teams and pitched stories they will work on in the coming months. We look forward to reading these publications and sharing them with you.

The workshop was organised in partnership with the Public Interest Journalism Lab, a Ukrainian NGO and community of journalists focused on in-depth reporting. The programme was designed by prominent journalists Natalia Gumeniuk and Angelina Kariakina.

The “Life Under Occupation” project is supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.