April 3, 2015

Ukraine Today news channel aims to reach English-speaking world

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Yaro Bihun

Dr. Lada Roslycky describes the work of Ukraine Today, the recently created 24-hour English-language web-based Ukrainian news channel.

The independent channel was launched in August 2014 with the primary intent of informing the worldwide English-speaking audience about Ukraine and the dire situation it has been forced into over the past year.

Introducing Ukraine Today’s director of strategic communications, Dr. Lada Roslycky, Ambassador Olexander Motsyk said the channel was created to provide the world with objective information about what is happening in Ukraine. And that is especially important today, he said, when it is forced to resist not only military aggression and economic pressure from Russia, but its unprecedented worldwide informational war as well.

Dr. Roslycky, a Canadian of Ukrainian descent, is known as a soft-power security expert with 15 years of experience in such fields as international security, Euro-Atlantic integration and democracy-building. She pointed out in her presentation that Ukraine Today is Ukraine’s first English-language international news and analysis channel to take on this challenge.

The channel’s mission, she said, is to cover events in Ukraine, Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, and the international response to them, and in so doing, to become an informational bridge between Ukraine and the international community. That bridge is being built on transparency, accountability and the principles of free speech and journalistic objectivity, she said, and its target audience includes politicians, journalists, opinion leaders, potential investors in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, the Ukrainian diaspora and other interested viewers.

Screenshot of Anna Guz, a young architect who had been a captive of the pro-Russian militants, being interviewed in the Ukraine Today documentary “Tortured Femininity: Revenge or Forgiveness.”

Yaro Bihun

Screenshot of Anna Guz, a young architect who had been a captive of the pro-Russian militants, being interviewed in the Ukraine Today documentary “Tortured Femininity: Revenge or Forgiveness.”

Dr. Roslycky said that, in addition to providing truthful information about Russia’s war against Ukraine and the international response to it, Ukraine Today will also focus on economic reforms in Ukraine, its business and investment opportunities and risks, and on its society and culture.

A major obstacle to this independent station’s successful operation and expansion is the lack of funding, she said, and she appealed to those in a position to help to do so in any way they can. Ukraine Today does not receive funds from the government, she said.

After her presentation and discussion, those attending were shown segments of a moving Ukraine Today documentary feature, “Tortured Femininity: Revenge or Forgiveness,” presenting the personal experiences of four women who had suffered much during the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

The women – Russian-speaking but pro-Ukrainian – are: Elena Rybak, a doctor and wife of a Horlivka City Council politician who was abducted, tortured and killed by pro-Russian militants; Anna Guz, a young architect who had been a captive of those militants; Alena Klimenko, a Donetsk schoolgirl whose mother was abducted and tortured by the pro-Russian militants and then volunteered to serve in the Ukrainian armed forces; and Olga Fedorenko, a sculptor whose son disappeared without a trace in that eastern war zone.

The 24-hour Ukraine Today news program is not available on cable or broadcast television. It can be viewed only on the web (uatoday.tv).

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