In Lyman, print news only link to world

Barbara Wojazer, Agence France-Presse

Valentyna Bykova knew the residents of Lyman, a bombed-out eastern Ukrainian town a dozen kilometres away from Russian positions, were waiting for her. She was bringing them the latest issue of Zoria — Dawn — a local paper whose print edition is vital when power goes down near the front. “Sometimes we don’t have enough copies because it’s the only remaining link to the outside world,” said the 78-year-old retired journalist. Print news may be dying in much of the world, but for isolated communities near Ukraine’s front lines, it has become one of the few reliable sources of information left, as Russian bombardment cuts electricity and internet access.

Bykova walked through Lyman’s streets, lined with crumbling buildings, their windows barricaded or blown-out, until she spotted a crowd standing in the silent city. As soon as she held up the stacks of black-and-white copies, a dozen pensioners swarmed her. “Give me some, wait! Me too! I didn’t get any, just one please!” people shouted.

The pensioners’ bicycles rattled as they surrounded Bykova, who wet her finger to better separate the copies. Many of the town’s elderly residents look to the paper for guidance at a time of rising disinformation, and for some, it is a reminder of simpler times.

“It’s impossible to live without this newspaper,” said Galyna Brys, a 72-year-old retired railway worker clutching her issue. “It talks about everything in detail, about our Lyman. They keep writing even when times are so difficult for us,” she said. Lyman has come under renewed Russian attacks, prompting authorities to urge the community of around 8,700 people to evacuate. The city used to be home to 20,000, but its population plummeted after more than two-and-a-half years of fighting and Russian occupation between May and October 2022. The stories of its diaspora featured prominently in the latest edition of the four-page paper, managed in Kyiv by editor-in-chief Oleksandr Pasichnyk. The paper also covered news about clean water supplies and ended with a section on the achievements of local athletes.

“I’m so thrilled that Pasichnyk is in Kyiv, and does not forget about us, about our city. It soothes my soul,” Brys said. The long-standing bond between the local papers and their community gives them an edge in the maze of social media disinformation. But the small scale of regional media also means small budgets, already crippled by the war, which dried up advertisement. “International donors aren’t paying enough attention to regional media,” said Sabra Ayres from Fondation Hirondelle. The Swiss non-profit organisation supports local news outlets in partnership with Ukraine’s International Institute for Regional Media and Information. “It essentially comes down to this: a strong independent press is good for any democracy,” Ayres added.

Zoria relies on the strength of a few volunteers — starting with Larysa Puchkova, from the children’s public library — to reach its hometown. Puchkova coordinates the distribution from her library, decorated with drawings of fairies but long deserted by the children, who have been evacuated from the city. Puchkova used to pick up the papers at the post office across the road, but Russian attacks forced it to close. That was no hurdle for Puchkova, who had a “network of activists” bringing Zoria from nearby cities. In Lyman, the copies wait for a lull in attacks from Russian forces dropping guided bombs on the city. Those attacks often cut communications, in which case Puchkova resorts to traditional word of mouth to distribute the paper.

Puchkova says it is worth the trouble. Bringing news from the other side of the country is in itself powerful against a Russian disinformation campaign trying to portray Ukraine as a failed state. “Despite the battles and the terrible, brutal war in our country, we are fighting and we are still alive. The paper shows all that,” Puchkova said. Near the church, Svitlana Dzyuba held up the paper high in front of her, shouting: “We will read it from cover to cover! It’s so precious to us!” But she suddenly went from euphoria to tears. “When we get it... we remember what a city we used to have,” she said. Wiping her tears, she urged AFP journalists to leave Lyman, a city that she deemed too dangerous for outsiders. Before sending the team off, Puchkova handed over a pile of tourist guides, showing horse-drawn carriages journeying around Lyman and its busy lake shores. “Today you travelled, and saw what you saw. This book contains everything you did not see, what we used to be,” Puchkova said. “I hope one day we’ll be back, even better than before.”