When newspaper is a luxury

Anna Dombrovska, military journalist and volunteer has been on the frontline for more than a year, making impressive documentaries not only about everyday life and living conditions of Ukrainian military, but also about daily problems civilians face – the lack of amenities, electricity, heating, food, money... and the lack of objective information about what is actually happening in the country and when the end to the war can be expected. Recently Anna has volunteered to distribute Den newspaper at the frontline, and striking photos and texts which reflect people’s reaction are published on her Facebook page.

It is not a new experience for our newspaper. Delivering the paper to the frontline is not always easy, but for two years Den has been read by our military on roadblocks and in trenches. Past year our newspaper has been regularly distributed three times a week for residents of the frontline areas. Anna Dombrovska recently started helping in the delivery.

“For more than a year I have been working in the ATO zone. I often have to travel to the peaceful parts of Ukraine. At some point a decision was made to help people, particularly to bring them newspapers,” says Anna Dombrovska. “Here the people have only one-sided information. And this is very wrong. You start talking to people and realize that they regurgitate news from Russian TV channels.”

According to Anna, the coverage of Ukrainian television, radio, and newspapers is almost nonexistent in the ATO zone. “With the exception of those sporadic events when newspapers are brought by volunteers, like we do it with Den, or the publishers somehow convey the unsold or additionally printed copies,” continues the volunteer. “The support of the Ukrainian Ministry for Information Policy helped revive the newspaper Special Issue for Donbas Residents, which we also distribute. But its turnover is very small – only 20,000 copies. It does not cover even the inhabitants of several regional centers. And Kyiv must not cherish illusions that the east has the access to information. Here, by means of an old antenna you can easily tune to a Russian TV or radio channel, as well as some entertainment musical channels. The channels of so-called DNR and LNR are also broadcasted. Ukrainian media, I say it once again, are virtually absent. It is therefore important to distribute newspapers. And the newspapers should be outstanding – like Den, for which I am grateful to editors and to volunteer Oleksandr Yurkov, who provided for some newspaper copies. This is an important and rightful position of the newspaper. If any publications are present here, they are mostly in Russian. And Den in not only a newspaper in Ukrainian, it is a newspaper with a position. People want to read in Ukrainian. People want to read about Ukraine. This is evident by the reaction of local residents who are happy like children when receiving Den. Honestly, the people of the frontline area to whom we delivered Den, were not simply thankful, they admitted that for them it had been a holiday. Because an opportunity in the east to read a full-format and authoritative, serious newspaper is a luxury. In fact, people in the east know and love Den, they had been reading it before. We now have the opportunity to distribute Den in a more systematic way and in larger quantities. I hope that through caring people, including the Foundation that supports your publication, as well as Yurkov, we will work even better. You see, all these new technologies and online resources are very cool. But one thing is when you receive a newspaper in your hands, you read and hand it to a neighbor. Another is when you dream of the Internet access sometime later. People are looking for your newspaper to have the information about what is happening in the country, when the war will end, what is the president’s position on restoration of damaged areas, where they still live. We distributed Den in Opytne, Pisky, Netailove, and Pervomaiske... even those that had been initially somewhat sympathetic to DNR, have long understood what the ‘Russian World’ is and want to return home, to Ukraine. Now for people in the east the hunger for information is worse than desire to eat.”