List of imprisoned Ukrainian journalists 2025
Since the beginning of the occupation in 2014, the Crimean Peninsula has begun to experience significant restrictions on freedom of speech and access to information. A phenomenon of citizen journalism has emerged on the peninsula, designed to resist the occupation and provide Crimeans and the outside world with objective information about what is happening there. However, the occupation authorities have begun to oppress activists, media outlets, and citizen journalists.
ZMINA recorded 162 cases of pressure on journalists in temporarily occupied Crimea during 2022-2023. Since the beginning of 2024, more than 80 cases of pressure by the occupation authorities on professional media workers and citizen journalists have been recorded, in particular on journalists from the Crimean Solidarity initiative, the Kyrym newspaper, the Nankedzhan, Armanchyk and Crimean Process publications.
Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, the Russian Federation has implemented the same methods of suppressing freedom of speech in the newly occupied territories of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, harassing and unlawfully detaining professional journalists and bloggers and freelancers.
At least 26 journalists from the occupied territories are currently behind bars, 17 of whom are from Crimean Peninsula. Imprisoned journalists often face torture and inhumane treatment in places of detention, are placed in penal cells and do not have access to medical care. In addition, they are illegally transferred from the occupied territories to prisons in Russia, where their relatives and lawyers do not have constant access to them.
The list of imprisoned Ukrainian journalists is available in English and Ukrainian.
