The fourth in a series of press tours of journalists from Asian, African and Latin American countries to Ukraine traditionally began in the Lviv region, where the guests first visited the Superhumans Center. They learnt about the Center’s work, saw how various prosthetics departments function, how patients undergo rehabilitation and how psychological support is provided to victims of the war.
At a meeting with Andriy Hodyk, Deputy Head of the Lviv Regional Military Administration, the journalists learnt about the region’s challenges and achievements during the full-scale Russian invasion, and then visited the modular town Mariapolis, which is home to internally displaced people.
In Kyiv, foreign journalists had a conversation with Ukrainian MPs Oleksandr Merezhko, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze and Inna Sovsun, and spoke about increasing Western military support, bringing Vladimir Putin to justice through available international legal instruments. They also discussed the threat of media comparisons between the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
During the visit to the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital, the press tour participants saw with their own eyes the scale of the destruction of the modern buildings of the hospital and the despicable nature of the warfare waged by the Russian aggressor.
They continued learning about the effects of the Russian invasion by visiting the towns and villages of the Kyiv region that had been affected in February-March 2022. They were led through the streets of Moshchun, which still, more than two years later, bear traces of Russian shelling. In Irpin, they stopped at the old Romanivsky Bridge, where a temporary memorial was erected. In Bucha, they visited the memorial in honor of the dead civilians. In Borodyanka, the journalists met with Natalia Buzovetska, Director of the Palace of Culture, near the high-rise buildings destroyed by aerial bombs and Banksy’s graffiti.
At the Presidential Office, the journalists met with Oleksandr Bevz, the adviser to the head, who told them about the current situation in Ukraine – how the country is responding to Russia’s new nuclear blackmail, the goals of President Zelenskyi’s visit to the United States, and the challenges Ukraine is facing in the context the US elections and the start of the winter season. They also discussed India’s role as a mediator in possible peace talks.
At Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the guests took part in an expert discussion “Russian disinformation as an obstacle to a just peace. Global dimension.”
How Russia changes the identity of abducted Ukrainian children, the challenge of returning deported children, and how Ukraine rehabilitates, integrates and prevents re-traumatization of returned child victims. A meeting with Doctor of Philosophy in international law, expert at the Regional Center for Human Rights, and Daria Kasyanova, Head of the Board of the Ukrainian Network for Children’s Rights, Program Director of the charitable foundation “SOS Children’s Villages Ukraine,” was devoted to this topic.
The press tour participants also spoke with the permanent representative of the President in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea Tamila Tasheva and Leniye Umerova, who shared her story of being in captivity, told them what helped her to endure psychologically and how the exchange process took place.
The journalists were deeply moved by Leniye’s story and her resilience in these terrible circumstances. Tamila Tasheva shared details of the resistance in occupied Crimea, debunked Russian myths about the peninsula and told what must be taken into account when planning the deoccupation of Crimea and its residents.
The foreign journalists spent the whole day in the Chernihiv region. They visited the center of the region, the village of Yahidne, where the Russian occupiers had kept all the villagers for a month in the small school basement. They also had a meeting with the Chernihiv branch of the “Voices of Children” charitable foundation.
The regional leaders paid attention to the guests from the Global South countries. Ivan Vashchenko, the deputy head of the Chernihiv Regional State Administration, and Dmytro Bryzhynskyi, the head of the Chernihiv City Military Administration, spoke about the situation in the Chernihiv region from the beginning of the full-scale invasion until now.
Besides, the journalists had the opportunity to meet the main star of the Chernihiv region – the dog Patron and learn about the phenomenon of Patron’s popularity among children.
On the last day of their stay in Kyiv, journalists from Latin America, Africa and Asia talked with the diplomat, the former ambassador of Ukraine to the USA and Chairman of the UCMC Bboard Valeriy Chaly. He detailed the chronology of Russia’s 10-year war against Ukraine, describing the context and geopolitical situation that led to the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the Russian invasion of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
The press tour took place as part of the Unfold Ukraine to Global South project, implemented by Ukraine Crisis Media Center in cooperation and coordination with the Open Society Foundation and funded by the International Renaissance Foundation.
