Reporters Without Borders: Kiev Pressures Media to Show Ukrainian Troops as Victims, Not Attackers

"As well as risking their lives at the front line, some 9,000 or so reporters covering the war in Ukraine have difficulties gaining access to certain places and difficulties filming or taking photos, and even are occasionally detained. Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns these abuses and calls on the Ukrainian authorities to eliminate these obstacles for the media," the statement read.

According to RSF, in order to obtain accreditation with the Ukrainian authorities local and international reporters agree to abide by specific rules associated with Ukraine's national security concerns, such as not exposing the names of units and their location, not filming military installations, waiting several hours before reporting a missile strike. Yet "unjustified obstacles" to credible and impartial reporting persist in the field, journalists said.

"When it came to taking photos on the front line, there was always a no that arrived from nowhere," French photojournalist Veronique de Viguerie said, adding that she was also experiencing pressure "to always present Ukrainian soldiers as victims and not as attackers," while covering the conflict in Ukraine.

Another reporter, who wished to remain anonymous, claimed that the Ukrainian authorities view foreign journalists as "influence relays rather than information vehicles."

"I was detained for several hours by local militias and then interrogated by the SBU [Security Service of Ukraine] over harmless photos, although my accreditation was in order," the reporter said.

Residents lay flowers in the memory of people who were killed on the March, 14 by fragments of a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile, that had been shot down near the Government House in the city center in Donetsk, Donetsk People's Republic. The Donetsk authorities reported, 20 people died and nine were injured.

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A reporter for the French newspaper Les Echos, Guillaume Ptak, several times has been detained at checkpoints by territorial defense volunteers, who were unaware that the media are allowed to work despite the curfew. Fear of detention compels most journalists to avoid taking photos and videos as they pass through the checkpoints.

Legitimate restrictions related to national security concerns must be proportionate and not infringe on the work of journalists, the head of RSF's Eastern Europe and Central Asia desk, Jeanne Cavelier said, calling on the Ukrainian government to draw up precise principles regarding reporting conditions and to enforce them by all possible means.