Dying for truth

Vadym Komarov, a journalist from Cherkasy, was a walking news warehouse for his native city of some 277,000 people in central Ukraine.

Besides working for local media, Komarov was a popular blogger, writing about corruption in the city council, schools, prisons and much more. His colleagues and friends describe him as an uncompromising and aggressive reporter, a truth-seeker ready to get to the bottom of every story.

When police announced that they had arrested suspects in the 2016 murder of journalist Pavel Sheremet on Dec. 12, it was supposed to be the long-awaited breakthrough in a case that appeared dead for 3.5 years.

However, it soon became clear that police didn’t have strong evidence against the three suspects: a musician serving in the military, a military nurse and a pediatric surgeon. All three deny their involvement.

The hunt for information that exposes corruption by politicians, law enforcement and oligarchs is a dangerous job in Ukraine, one of the most corrupt countries in Europe.

Journalists’ work to uncover fraud and financial machinations frequently harms the interests and reputations of politicians, both local and national, and government and business heavyweights. Their reactions can be severe: attacks on social media, threats, surveillance, physical assault and even murder.

Journalist and writer Oles Buzyna was a famous figure in Ukraine.

A long-time contributor and, briefly, the managing editor of the Segodnya newspaper, Buzyna was a historian, writer and frequent guest on various Ukrainian talk shows. He liked to say that the only thing he stood for was the truth — although his views were anything but mainstream.

It was February 2015. Russia’s war against Ukraine had been raging for 10 months. Serhiy Nikolayev, the war photographer of Segodnya newspaper, was traveling in the Donbas war zone with his friend, war photographer Max Rokotansky, and some other journalists.

Andrea Rochelli, 31, an experienced Italian war photographer and co-founder of Cesura, a collaborative of independent photographers, was used to working in conflict zones around the world. He came to the Donbas in 2014, the first and deadliest year of Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine that has already claimed more than 13,000 lives.

On the night of Feb. 19, 2014, one of the coldest and bloodiest days of the EuroMaidan Revolution, Viacheslav Veremiy finished work at the Vesti newspaper late at night. It was his first day back after a month on medical leave – he was injured during the revolution’s first clashes on Hrushevskoho Street in Kyiv.

As he was leaving home on July 3, 2001, Ukrainian journalist Ihor Aleksandrov told his wife it was going to be a good day.

One hour later, several men attacked and beat him with baseball bats. He later died in the hospital.

Oleksiy Pukach, the former general who once headed the surveillance department of Ukraine’s Interior Ministry, is supposed to serve a life sentence for the killing of journalist Georgiy Gongadze in 2000.

But he could go free soon.

Oct. 31 and Nov.14, 1999 –  Leonid Kuchma wins the presidential election in Ukraine for a second term. Journalist Olexiy Podolsky, who had covered the election, claims the vote was rigged in favor of Kuchma. He came fifth, after lawmaker Nataliya Vitrenko, but the Central Election Commission falsified the results, Podolsky says. The Central Election Commission claims the election was fair. At the time, Georgiy Gongadze had been working as Vitrenko’s press secretary. However, he simultaneously kept working as a prominent political journalist, criticizing Kuchma’s regime.

Most Ukrainians remember the “dashing 1990s” as a hard time of economic and political crisis fueled by unstoppable gang wars that erupted across the country.

In the post-communist power vacuum, with democrats not yet solidifying control, the newly independent country was falling apart, Yulia Mostova, chief editor of the Dzerkalo Tyzhnya news website, remembers.