A memorial dedicated to murdered journalist Pavel Sheremet was unveiled at the corner of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Ivan Franko streets in the center of Kyiv on July 20, 2020, on the fourth anniversary of the journalist’s death.
Sheremet was a prominent Ukrainian-Belarusian journalist who worked at the Ukrainska Pravda news outlet and hosted a morning show on Radio Vesti. He was killed when a bomb detonated in his car as he was driving to work on July 20, 2016.
The marble monument has the appearance of a crumpled white sheet of paper with the journalist’s name written in the middle. The bottom right corner of the monument reads: “A journalist was killed here on July 20, 2016.”
The authors of the monument are well-known Ukrainian sculpturist Nazar Bilyk and architect Maksym Kotsyuba. Sheremet’s friends and colleagues commissioned the sculpture, while Bilyk came up with the concept. It took six months to complete the monument.
“A crumpled sheet of paper is a symbol of the tragic death of Pavel Sheremet,” Bilyk says. “A white sheet is the field of a journalist’s expression, his life. And enlarged to the size of human height, it personifies him. The deformed inscription in the center of the monument can be read only from the front. Taking a step aside, we will see fractures of letters that hide the name of the journalist from the observer.”
Sheremet’s friends and Ukrainian journalists came to the site of his murder on the morning of July 20 to witness the unveiling of the monument and honor his memory.
The investigation of the murder has become one of the highest-profile cases in Ukraine’s modern history. For over three years, there was no progress in the investigation. Finally, in late 2019, the authorities arrested three suspected perpetrators of the crime.
The three suspects are Ukrainian army medic Yana Duhar, pediatric surgeon Yulia Kuzmenko and Donbas war veteran and a member of the Riffmaster rock band Andrii Antonenko. However, they deny the accusations of wrongdoing, and critics point out that the evidence is thin.
Despite criticism, the police announced in June that the investigation was complete and the case was ready to be sent to court.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who hailed the arrests in December, said on July 20 that society needs clear answers and convincing, indisputable evidence in Sheremet’s case.
“His brazen assassination is a loss for all independent media and journalists. And this crime is a disgrace for Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a written statement.
Pavel Sheremet worked as a journalist for Belarusian, Russian and Ukrainian media outlets. He was imprisoned and then exiled by the authoritarian regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. Due to his work in Russia, he was also persecuted by the Kremlin. In Ukraine, the journalist continued to criticize the Belarusian and Russian authorities, while also covering Ukrainian politics.
