Donbas appears on mental map of Ukraine more often than Crimea – journalist

Ukrainian journalists are now more likely to write about Donbas, rather than about Crimea, forgetting that the war started in the peninsula.

There are several reasons for this: the small number of internally displaced persons, compared to Donbas and no fighting in Crimea, says Pavlo Kazarin, the journalist of the Crimea.Realities project. He said this during Lviv Media Forum 2016.

According to him, unwillingness of journalists and politicians to examine the situation in these regions and understand the mood of the people who live there, only steps up the isolation of these territories.

The journalist believes that Ukrainian media often ignore the problems of people living in the regions, paying attention only to what happens in Kyiv.

According to First Deputy Information Policy Minister of Ukraine Emine Dzhapar, 47.8% of Ukrainians do not think Crimea should be returned to Ukraine.

“It’s telling. Today, many Ukrainians believe that only separatists live in Crimea,” the official noted, adding that it is necessary today to remind, that Crimea is the Ukrainian region.

The information vacuum can be also seen in Donbas. According to Vitaly Sizov from the Donetsk Institute of Information, after the militants had captured television tower in Donetsk, they can broadcast their channels for the residents of ATO area in good quality. However, only three Ukrainian TV channels are broadcasted on the territory seized by separatists: TRK “Donbas”, DTV and Hromadske TV Donbas. Tower in Karachun was destroyed back in 2014, and it has not yet been restored while the tower in Mariupol physically cannot cover this area.

According to him, 88% of the inhabitants of Donetsk region receive information from television, 51% – from the Internet.

“We need to focus on work in social networks, especially Russian ones, and promote the information there,” Sizov said.

According to Anastasia Stanko the journalist of Hromadske TV, Ukrainian journalists should have the opportunity to work in ATO area. According to her, the recent scandal with website Myrotvorets, which published the data of journalists, who were accredited in the “DPR”, created additional risks for media professionals and could affect the desire of foreign reporters to cover the situation in Donbas:

“There is much talk about a possible amnesty, which will apply only to those who did not commit serious crimes. A question: how will we decide who committed them and who did not, if no one will gather the evidence?“

She added that many topics in Donbas still remained without attention of Ukraine, for example, shelling of border Ukrainian villages with Russian Grad multiple rocket launchers a year ago. Despite the fact that these villages are located on the territory controlled by the Ukrainian government, Ukraine has not launched criminal cases and not interviewed witnesses of the shelling.