{"id":6938,"date":"2025-12-30T11:23:23","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T11:23:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=6938"},"modified":"2025-12-30T11:23:23","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T11:23:23","slug":"the-ukrainian-man-fighting-russian-lies-with-his-front-line-newspaper-russia-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/?p=6938","title":{"rendered":"The Ukrainian man fighting Russian \u2018lies\u2019 with his front-line newspaper | Russia-Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A newspaper on Russia\u2019s radar<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Before delivering news along the shattered roads of northeastern Ukraine, Vassyl spent years reporting from Zolochiv. He wrote poetry when he was a teenager, studied literature at university in Kharkiv, and joined the local Zolochiv newspaper at age 20. At 31, he stepped away to work for the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Natural Resources, where he investigated corruption in the district. Ten years later, he returned to the weekly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine doing anything other than journalism,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Vassyl is proud that his newspaper was among the first to be de-nationalised in 2017. He helped draft the legislation that allowed Ukrainian local newspapers to be privatised, a step he saw as essential to reducing state pressure and safeguarding editorial independence.<\/p>\n

Throughout the war, he has continued to investigate local political corruption, though he acknowledges that much of his focus has shifted to the war.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia feeds on our internal divisions. Even if holding our own authorities to account remains part of the job, currently, my priority is to counter the enemy\u2019s lies,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The fight against Russian disinformation has put his life at risk more than once.<\/p>\n

On April 5, 2022, at 9:30am, two Russian shells hit the weekly’s newsroom, partially destroying the 140-year-old building that housed it. Vassyl would normally have been sitting at his desk at the time, but he was spared because he stayed in bed longer than usual that day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was running late to work … The night before, we partied with one of my friends and drank a lot of terrible vodka,\u201d he says with a dark laugh. \u201cIt is a time of war. The quality of the alcohol is very bad, but this is all we had.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what saved me. I usually wake up early, but I was hungover.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he finally got moving and was walking with a friend, two shells passed overhead.<\/p>\n

“Half a second later, everything exploded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, nobody was in the newsroom at the time. Vassyl\u2019s old desk is still covered in debris more than three years later, and he knows he had a lucky escape.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the shrapnel marks in the room, I would have been dead,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

His newsroom has been targeted 10 times \u2014 twice with artillery, eight times with guided aerial bombs \u2014 with the latest strike hitting in spring 2025.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the war, Kremlin news outlets claimed that Vassyl was responsible for spreading disinformation.<\/p>\n

\u201cApparently, I run a propaganda outlet,\u201d Vassyl says ironically. \u201cIn 2022, Russian state television aired a report accusing me of illegally entering one of their villages to spread false information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have never been there. What I have done, since the start of the war, is document missile remnants embedded in the ground to show where they came from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tracing the origins of missile remnants could expose Russian attacks as war crimes or violations of international law.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis work is the reason why my newsroom has been targeted,\u201d Vassyl says.<\/p>\n

\"Ukraine
Kostyantyn Neoneta, the newspaper’s accountant, delivers the weekly edition in Zolochiv, far from first-person view (FPV) drones near the Russian border [Louis Lemaire\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following the 2022 invasion and the bombing of its printing press in Kharkiv, the newspaper ceased publication for nearly half a year. Russian forces were closing in, prompting many from Zolochiv to flee to safer areas, at least temporarily. But Vassyl chose to remain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had to stay and bear witness, but I couldn’t do it if my loved ones were also in danger,\u201d he says, explaining how he sent his family to western Ukraine and then began documenting the destruction engulfing his hometown.<\/p>\n

At the time, enemy forces were less than 10km (6.2 miles) away. With his phone, he filmed bombings, civilian evacuations and shattered buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I didn\u2019t film what I was seeing with my own eyes, who would have done it? We live in very remote areas. I had to show the world what was happening to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vassyl taught himself how to edit videos, which he posted on YouTube and social media to reach more people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Russians were claiming they were striking command posts or tank repair facilities,\u201d he says, still outraged. \u201cIn reality, they were hitting residential buildings, the hospital and a kindergarten.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ukraine
Kostyantyn delivers the newspaper in Zolochiv [Louis Lemaire\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the Ukrainian army began liberating the first villages near Zolochiv, Vassyl became determined to restore access to news in areas that had been deprived of it for six months. He found a new printing press and got to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn these rural areas, there is often no alternative source for reliable information. People trust us, and we cannot walk away from that,\u201d he says proudly.<\/p>\n

Two members of the newsroom returned to work remotely, while Kostyantyn Neoneta, the newspaper\u2019s accountant, remained in Zolochiv like Vassyl.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to leave,\u201d says Kostyantyn, who distributes the newspaper in the town every week by bicycle. \u201cI knew I was far more useful here than in other cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

In those villages where Russian signals bleed into people\u2019s homes, \u201cpeople are left with propaganda,\u201d Vassyl says, adding, \u201cMy mission is to make sure it does not happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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A newspaper on Russia\u2019s radar Before delivering news along the shattered roads of northeastern Ukraine, Vassyl spent years reporting from Zolochiv. He wrote poetry when he was a teenager, studied literature at university in Kharkiv, and joined the local Zolochiv newspaper at age 20. At 31, he stepped away to work for the Ministry of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}