ECHR recognizes Russia's crimes against Ukraine's media
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) judgement in the case “Ukraine and the Netherlands v. the Russian Federation” recognizes that Russia has been systematically dismantling the Ukrainian media since 2014, reports the National Council of Ukraine on Television and Radio Broadcasting (NCTRB), whose filings were taken into account by the Grand Chamber of the ECHR when passing the judgement.
Namely, in Paragraph 1332 of the judgement, the court quotes the speech by the NCTRB Chair Olha Herasymyuk at the European Platform of Regulatory Authorities meeting No. 55:
“Russia's aggression against Ukraine started in 2014 as a 'hybrid war' in which sophisticated propaganda played an important role. Since the spring of 2014, Ukraine has lost 175 frequency assignments in the areas occupied by the so-called 'DPR' and 'LPR'. Following the full-scale invasion of February 24, 2022, Russia seized another 284 frequencies, with 164 Ukrainian broadcasters having to cease operations. Russian news outlets began broadcasting on these frequencies instead.”
The court recognized that Russia has been committing human rights violations systematically and en masse in the Ukrainian territories that have temporarily fallen under its control since 2014. Namely, these include:
- torturing and kidnapping journalists;
- extrajudicial executions;
- forcible silencing and persecution of media outlets;
- seizing Ukrainian media resources and frequencies;
- dismantling media infrastructure.
“The ECHR recognized that Russia’s actions in the media space constitute a systematic purge of the Ukrainian media. These actions are recognized as a violation of international law, and Russia's responsibility is a legally established fact. This means that Ukraine will not have to prove these violations 'from scratch' in future international tribunals: the evidence has already been collected, studied, and enshrined in the ECHR judgement,” the NCTRB notes.
On July 9, 2025, the ECHR judgement in the case “Ukraine and the Netherlands v. Russia” recognized that Russia had violated multiple fundamental rights, including the right to life, the prohibition of torture and slavery, as well as freedom of peaceful assembly. The case concerns the MH17 tragedy where the plane was shot down from the sky over Donetsk oblast in July 2014.
Institute of Mass Information's statistics on Russia's crimes against the media in Ukraine
According to the Institute of Mass Information, in the three years and four months since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russia has committed 839 crimes against journalists and media in Ukraine.
113 media workers in Ukraine have died at the hands of Russian forces since the start of the Russo–Ukrainian war in 2014. Of these, 106 died after the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
At least 112 Ukrainian and foreign journalists have been imprisoned or taken hostage by Russian and pro-Russian forces since the start of the Russo–Ukrainian war in 2014. Many of them are still in prison. For Viktoria Roshchyna, the imprisonment ended in death. As of July 23, 2025, at least 28 civilian Ukrainian media workers and one journalist turned combatant remain imprisoned in Russia.
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