Committtee to Protect Journalists:
As world leaders launch diplomatic offensives to try to stave off a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian journalists are preparing to cover a conflict that could take a catastrophic toll on their country. Russia’s amassing of troops at its neighbor’s eastern border follows its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014 — a move rejected by Ukraine and the international community – after Ukraine’s former president, the pro-Russia Victor Yanukovych, was ousted in a revolution that year. Ukraine also claims that since 2014 Russia has backed pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, though Russia denies that its soldiers went there on national orders. The 2014 war in Ukraine’s east posed enormous challenges for journalists — several were taken hostage by pro-Russian separatists and others were killed or wounded in crossfire. In Crimea, Kremlin-controlled authorities have obstructed and closed independent media outlets and imprisoned journalists.