A media worker from the Kharkiv Region has been wounded during a shelling with cluster munitions when he was delivering his newspaper to distribution points near the Zmiyivska Thermal Power Plant. After removing the fragment, he returned to the delivery.
Although the shelling and wounding took place back on June 24, commercial director of Zmiyivskyi Kurier, a former anti-terrorist operation participant, Kostiantyn Kolpakov, reported this to National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) only now, when the newspaper’s editorial office asked for financial support.
“On the way from the village of Slobozhanske to the village of Lyman, I heard a humming noise. I thought it was something wrong to my wheels. I stopped on the side of the road, went around the car, but the wheels were intact. And immediately I heard and saw how a rocket flew over me, apparently it was the one from a Grad MLRS. I understood that it was shelling. There was an explosion and the cluster munitions began to explode one after another in my direction. I immediately fell to the ground and it saved me. One round exploded a few meters away from me. The shrapnel flew over the place where I was standing, broke through the glass and got stuck in the roof of the car. Another caught the windshield. The third, fortunately, a small one, hit me in the thigh,” the media person said.
After the shelling, Kostiantyn went to the Lyman urgent care center, where he was given help: the shrapnel was removed and he was bandaged. His car was intact, so the media worker went on delivering newspapers. The wound took about two weeks to heal.
As Oleksandr Sumets, the head of the publication, told the NUJU press service, the newspaper Zmiyivskyi Kurier has been published since 1994, at first as a district newspaper, and now as a regional publication of the Kharkiv Region. This year, after the start of a full-scale war, printing had to be suspended, but as soon as the Kharkiv printing house resumed working, the newspaper began to reach readers again from June 1. There are four people in the team. Despite the economic difficulties, the increase in the price of paper and newspaper printing services, the decline of the advertising market, the bankruptcy of the bank where the editorial office kept its funds, the newspaper maintains its weekly printing frequency. However, the volume had to be reduced from the pre-war 16 to eight pages.
“We are published despite all odds,” says the editor-in-chief. “We have subscribers, we sell the newspaper in retail, we are trying to restore advertising volumes little by little, although it is incredibly difficult. That’s why we really need working capital.
In view of the appeal of the editors and taking into account the importance of the restoration of the print press in the de-occupied and near-front territories, the NUJU with the assistance of foreign benefactors will provide financial support to Zmiyivskyi Kurier.
Restoration of newspaper publishing in the de-occupied and front-line territories is one of the priorities in the NUJU team’s work. Currently, thanks to financial support of the NUJU and foreign benefactors, one or more issues of newspapers have been printed for Izyum (Obrii Iziumshchyny), Lyman (Zoria), Barvinkove (Visti Barvinkivshchyny), Bakhmut (Vpered), Kherson (Novyi Den), Snihurivka (Visti Snihurivshchyny), Zolochiv (Zoria), Kharkiv (Selianska Hazeta), Zmiyiv (Visti Zmiyivshchyny), Blyzniuky (Nove Zhyttia), Bohodukhiv (Mayak), Kupiyansk (Visnyk Kupiyanshchyny), Nova Vodolaha (Visti Vodolazhchyny), several more editions are underway.
Maksym Stepanov, NUJU information service
