Support for Ukrainian and Russian journalists
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian and Russian journalists have been working in extremely difficult conditions. Ukrainian journalists have seen their cities bombed and sometimes their homes or newsrooms destroyed. Some have had to seek refuge abroad.
Russian journalists are suffering the most severe censorship imposed on the country since the Soviet Union. Independent media outlets have been closed down, and the best writers have had to go into exile to avoid prison.
With the support of Le Temps and Reporters Without Borders Switzerland, Geneva Solutions is launching «Ukraine Stories», a project with two objectives:
- To give a voice to journalists who have lost their jobs, by offering them a platform so that they can continue their work and share their stories with Switzerland and the rest of the world.
- To support them financially by paying them for their work.
Bombing of the Kiev television tower on 1 March 2022. (Credit: Ministry of the Interior of Ukraine) 
The car of Swiss photojournalist Guillaume Briquet after coming under Russian fire on 6 March in the Mykolaiv region (Credit: Maria Chrona) 
Reporters Without Borders and Free Press Unlimited distribute protective equipment to Ukrainian journalists. (Credit: RSF)
A vital project
Information during wartime is crucial for the victims and for the international community. Our own journalists, correspondents and special envoys are doing an outstanding job at the moment, but our Ukrainian and Russian colleagues are best placed to tell the story of the daily life of war and exile and of the untold suffering that Vladimir Putin is inflicting on Ukraine and on his own country.
Their stories will be published by Geneva Solutions. They will be available for free in their original Ukrainian or Russian version as well as in English. Le Temps will translate a selection of the texts into French.
Russian journalist Marina Ovsiannikova, bursts into a pro-Kremlin TV news programme to denounce the offensive in Ukraine. (Credit: Keystone) 
Russian police officers arrest a participant during an anti-war rally in Ukraine in Moscow, 6 March, 2022. (Credit: Keystone) 
Russian police officers in Moscow during a rally against the war in Ukraine, 6 March, 2022. (Credit: Keystone)
How will your support be used?
Geneva Solutions is a non-profit news platform. All funds raised will go to Ukrainian and Russian journalists. Our goal is to publish more than a dozen of their publications every week. To achieve this goal we need at least CHF 30,000 per month.
- CHF 25,000 will pay for all the texts and photos of about fifty journalists for one month and will allow us to hire Ukrainian and Russian editors to supervise the platform.
- CHF 5,000 will pay for the translation of these stories so that they can be made available to the general public in Switzerland and around the world.
We are launching this crowdfunding campaign with an initial target of CHF 30,000. But of course, we want it to extend beyond the first month. Therefore, the second goal is CHF 60,000, followed by CHF 90,000 to make it last at least three months.
If you wish to cover a full month of the project at CHF 30,000 via this platform, we will be happy to contact you to express our appreciation of your generosity.
Important:
- Transparency is essential in our profession. For this reason, we ask that for contributions over CHF 5,000 the contributor discloses their identity to us. We reserve the right to return contributions that are deemed inadequate without an explanation.
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Everyone is free to choose whether or not they want their name to appear on the list of supporters. We encourage you to do so, especially for large amounts.
- We are very grateful to the contributors, however, they will not influence the content that will be published in this project. Editorial responsibility is assumed by the editors of Geneva Solutions and Le Temps.
