At a time when Ukrainian journalism is operating under the pressures of war, disinformation, and growing security threats, women are increasingly on the front lines of the profession — and at the same time among the principal targets of attacks. Their role, the challenges they face, and their contribution to the resilience of Ukrainian media were the focus of the event Women Shaping Journalism in Ukraine, held on April 30, 2026, in Kyiv to mark World Press Freedom Day.
The event was organized by UNESCO Ukraine in partnership with the Women in Media NGO, with the support of the Embassy of Japan in Ukraine and the participation of Hromadske Radio.
Current risks and wartime challenges
World Press Freedom Day was established by a UN General Assembly resolution in 1993 as a reminder of the fundamental importance of freedom of speech, media independence, and the safety of journalists worldwide.
The event “Women Shaping Journalism in Ukraine,” consisting of two panel discussions, was dedicated to the role of women in Ukrainian journalism and the challenges they face during the war.
The event opened with a moment of silence in memory of the journalists who have been killed. As Deputy Minister of Culture for European Integration Natalie Movshovych noted in her opening remarks, more than 120 journalists have died in Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion.
“Journalism in Ukraine is going through a difficult period today. It is not just a profession — it plays a critically important role in defending democratic values and freedom of speech. The work that the media does is part of Ukraine’s resilience. And this matters not only for Ukraine. It is the media that shape how we see reality and that convey the stories that, in turn, shape how the world sees Ukraine. In wartime, this is very important,” Natalie Movshovych said.
She added that despite all the existing risks — from online attacks, including those using AI technology, to offline threats — women journalists continue to perform their professional duties, often in highly dangerous circumstances. That is why, in the Deputy Minister’s opinion, the focus today should be not only on the work of women journalists themselves, but also on the conditions in which they perform that work.
The fact that, amid full-scale war and all the difficulties it brings, World Press Freedom Day is being marked in Ukraine with such attention shows that freedom of speech is now an extremely important topic, the Head of the UNESCO Office in Ukraine, Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, emphasized in turn.
In her speech, she cited UNESCO’s 2025 study World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development. It shows that the global press freedom index has fallen by approximately 10% since 2012. As for self-censorship, 63% and 72% of the world’s population live in conditions of limited or absent democratic space.
Ukrainian research, including studies by the Women in Media, shows that women make up the majority of staff at Ukrainian media outlets and are represented across various positions and roles. The threats faced by women in media are also gendered in nature — both online and offline. This, in turn, can produce what is known as the chilling effect: self-censorship, the avoidance of difficult topics, withdrawal from public appearances, and so on.
“In journalism, this effect is often linked to a growing fear of becoming the target of harassment or coordinated online violence. This fear is not abstract. It leads to very real consequences,” Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi stressed. “We must recognize that online violence is real. The fact that something was said in virtual reality means that this something can also have consequences for a person in the real-world dimension.”
In Ukraine, the front line is not only on the map. It is wherever a journalist with a camera or a laptop is located, Natalka Cmoc, Ambassador of Canada to Ukraine, noted in her remarks. She highlighted the work of the Global Media Defence Fund (GMDF), administered by UNESCO. Canada, as Natalka Cmoc emphasized, has been actively engaged in this area since the fund’s creation in 2019.
Women now make up almost 80% of the media sector and hold over half of all senior positions in the media, which is striking, the Ambassador added. Women journalists also frequently face threats in the digital sphere, such as the spread of defamation, and despite this they continue to work — and that, too, is striking.
“By defending journalists, we are also defending democracy,” Natalka Cmoc concluded.
How a new reality shapes new protection needs
The panel discussion “Protecting Women Journalists: Security Challenges and Ways to Address Them” was the second part of World Press Freedom Day 2026 in Kyiv. During the panel, participants discussed the current challenges facing Ukrainian women in media today, as well as ways to counter and respond to them across various dimensions.
Liza Kuzmenko, Head of the Women in Media, emphasized the importance of such multifaceted protection. She noted that her organization is implementing a range of programs to assist and support women in media, such as documenting cases of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) on its online attacks map; the “Taking Care of Our Health” program reimbursing the cost of preventive medical check-ups; and “We Take Care of You While You Take Care of Others” a support program for women in media engaged in caregiving work.
The 80% of women shaping the Ukrainian media sector today are mostly in field positions — journalists, reporters, war correspondents, Liza Kuzmenko explained. These are women who work daily and are exposed to a range of risks. But at the leadership level — where decisions are made — the ratio is already 50/50.
Another important observation concerns small newsrooms, where a team may consist of just two or three women, and where one woman performs several roles at once — from driver to editor-in-chief. That is why it is essential today to talk about the specific threats facing women journalists: digital and physical threats, double workload, burnout, and so on. And to respond to these threats in time.
“Honestly, what I would very much like is that, when critical moments arise, journalists turn not only to Women in Media but are protected at multiple levels: from the level of the state to the work of the police, to the level of their own newsrooms. But of course civil society organizations, including Women in Media — which exist precisely for this purpose — play a major role here,” Liza Kuzmenko said.
Aliona Yatsyna, co-founder, executive director, and war correspondent at Kordon Media in Sumy, focused her remarks on the physical safety of journalists working directly on the contact line and in frontline communities. Sumy is located 19 km from the front line, so the entire newsroom essentially works inside an active combat zone every day, Aliona Yatsyna noted:
“19 km is nothing. It is actually a kill zone for drones. Last month, small drones started flying right into people’s windows. At first this targeted military personnel, but yesterday in Shostka a drone flew into the apartment of the head of a major charitable foundation — three people were killed.”
The war correspondent added that information about the entire newsroom — including the home addresses and work locations of its staff — is publicly known, which creates additional danger for their work. Yet there are no recommendations on how to protect themselves from such threats.
Aliona Yatsyna also said that one of her team’s most pressing requests today is the purchase of an armored vehicle. And this request is an example of how journalists’ needs are evolving in line with today’s security challenges. However, this request is hard to fulfill, because such a vehicle may be classified as a dual-use good.
“If issues of protection, security, and the lives of journalists can be solved with money, this needs to be done while there are still people left to save. I would like to talk about my newsroom and my journalists as living people — not honor their memory, however that may sound right now,” Aliona Yatsyna stressed.
Online violence: prevention and response
The panel also heard a video address from Yevheniia Kravchuk, Member of Parliament of Ukraine and Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy. That day, she was attending an off-site session of the Temporary Investigative Commission, which investigates Russia’s crimes against media and journalists, in Dnipro along with her colleagues. This is the first Temporary Investigative Commission to investigate crimes committed against the representatives of a specific profession.
The MP spoke about the wide-ranging challenges facing media workers today, particularly those linked directly to Russian aggression. She singled out gender-based attacks as a separate category.
“We have already held seven sessions of the TIC, and we see that there are also specific crimes against women journalists — that is, there is gender-based online violence, harassment, and behind it stand the special services of the Russian Federation, which simply want to silence women journalists,” Yevheniia Kravchuk said.
Another panelist, Oksana Maksymeniuk, Head of the Legal Department at the Institute for Regional Press Development, focused her remarks on the legal and regulatory challenges in dealing with attacks on journalists, particularly attacks carried out online. Such attacks, Oksana Maksymeniuk noted, can target a wide range of women journalists — from war correspondents to those working far from the front lines. As an example, she cited the case of investigative journalist Olena Mudra from Uzhhorod: a discrediting campaign using artificial intelligence technology was documented against the journalist over her active public stance and her reporting against the construction of wind turbines in the Carpathians.
“As she suggests, the organizer of these attacks is a company engaged in logging in Zakarpattia. And over the past year and a half, this company has filed three lawsuits against Olena Mudra. Each of these lawsuits is unfounded,” Oksana Maksymeniuk said. “What is also important, beyond the journalist needing legal support, the lawsuits themselves include claims for the reimbursement of attorney fees in each case — UAH 50,000. Moral damages — also UAH 50,000. And if we add up the three lawsuits, each of them, not counting court fees, comes to UAH 100,000.”
The fact that an attempt is being made to shift the financial costs onto the journalist herself is one element of a targeted attack, the lawyer adds. Because it is also additional pressure.
How law enforcement classifies online attacks on women journalists was explained during the panel by Viktor Baiov, Head of the Department for Countering Illegal Content at the Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine. He first cited Article 171 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, which establishes liability for obstructing the lawful professional activity of journalists.
“Article 171(2) directly states that influence in any form, or persecution of journalists, is punishable by law. And this influence and persecution can take various forms. Of course, today this is 99% online. These are direct technical attacks, such as attempts to hack accounts, to send malicious software, or to use phishing methods. There are also attacks on personal data. There are many databases on the internet that leak data, and accordingly fraudsters and individuals interested in particular campaigns against women journalists exploit this by purchasing such data,” Viktor Baiov said.
Among other types of attacks, he also mentioned threats — including in comments and text messages, such as death threats and threats of physical violence. This can escalate into stalking both online and offline — into real life, when a potential offender identifies a person’s home or work address. Among gender-based attacks are sexism, sexualized threats, the creation and spread of AI-generated fakes, reputational attacks, and more.
“Each situation is individual, and to unpack it, a comprehensive operational-investigative and analytical approach must be applied,” Viktor Baiov added.
Maksym Onopriienko, member of the National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting, also spoke about the mechanisms and possibilities for responding to such threats at the level of the state regulator. According to him, the media regulator’s key task today is to move attacks against journalists out of the realm of individual responsibility or newsroom-level responsibility and into a clear, comprehensible state policy or state program.
“Our task as the media regulator is to be a platform for dialogue between the media, the state, and civil society in order to develop solutions for the problems we are talking about today, problems that perhaps do not yet have a full legal assessment. And to make them more visible,” Maksym Onopriienko stressed.
At the same time, during the panel Liza Kuzmenko also cited examples of effective law enforcement responses to attacks on women journalists. In particular, she mentioned an incident involving Hromadske Radio host Mariana Chorniievych in May 2025. At the time, during a live broadcast, threats began arriving at her personal email from an unknown sender whose email address was linked to the Russian mail.ru domain. After she contacted cyber police, it was established that the person sending these threats was located in occupied territory — specifically, in Crimea.
Although his location makes any further physical action by Ukrainian police impossible, the very fact that law enforcement responds promptly to such cases already gives women journalists a sense of support, panel participants stressed. And that is precisely what women in media in such situations need most — a sense of safety and the understanding that they are not alone.
If you are a woman in media who has experienced an online attack and need support, the Women in Media NGO is ready to provide free cybersecurity consultations, psychological support, legal protection, advocacy support, or other assistance on request. To get in touch, write to us at: ngo.womeninmedia@gmail.com