Ukraine

Ukraine ranked 55th of 180 countries in the 2026 RSF World Press Freedom Index, with a score of 66.10, rising seven places in a year and from 106th in the 2022 index. It is Ukraine’s best position since the RSF World Press Freedom Index began in 2002, and places it above several G7 states including Italy, Japan and the United States, which fell seven places to 64th.

Reporters Without Borders described Ukraine’s improvement as a relative exception in a year when the global average score reached a 25-year low and, for the first time in the index’s history, more than half the world’s countries fell into the difficult or very serious categories. RSF attributed the gain to Ukraine’s dynamic media sector and the investigative work carried out by Ukrainian outlets to strengthen transparency in political life.

A law effective from 20 January 2026 gave journalists and the public the right to attend open committee meetings of the Verkhovna Rada. A separate order of the Speaker on 4 August established practical arrangements for journalists to attend meetings inside Parliament. The legal change is therefore established; full physical implementation followed separately.

The Institute of Mass Information maintains a continuously updated database recording journalists and other media workers killed during the war, distinguishing deaths while reporting from deaths in other circumstances, including those of former media professionals serving in the armed forces.

As of 17 August 2026, IMI listed at least 27 Ukrainian media workers and one former media professional serving in the armed forces in Russian detention. Many have been transferred to Russia or elsewhere in occupied territory, and documented cases include torture, ill-treatment and convictions in politically motivated or sham proceedings.

The journalist Viktoria Roshchyna died in Russian custody on 19 September 2024. Her body, returned to Ukraine in February 2025, displayed numerous signs of torture and ill-treatment, including abrasions, haemorrhaging and a broken rib. Forensic experts had not established the precise cause of death.

RSF has recorded at least 25 attacks by Russian forces on television and radio towers since 2022, eight of them in the first ten days of the full-scale war. The cameraman Yevhenii Sakun was the first reporter killed after 24 February 2022, during the bombing of Kyiv’s television tower. RSF has filed ten complaints with the International Criminal Court over Russian war crimes against the media, the most recent in February 2026 concerning crimes against humanity, and calculates that a journalist in Ukraine has come under Russian attack on average every eleven days.

The discontinuation of United States Agency for International Development subsidies removed one of the country’s leading financial donors. Combined with material destruction, disrupted supply chains and the forced displacement of staff, the loss intensified the financial vulnerability of Ukrainian media and threatened the survival of many outlets.

The application of martial law continues to produce reporting restrictions, particularly on the front line. Ukrainian authorities have also been accused of pressure on opposition media and of failing to resolve the killings of journalists. Ten years after the car bombing that killed Pavel Sheremet in Kyiv in July 2016, that investigation remains unresolved. Media professionals assess the level of media freedom as relatively high while identifying impunity as a significant continuing problem.

State Media Monitor maps three entries in Ukraine. One sits in the independent family and two are State-Controlled.

Suspilne, the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, is classified Independent State-Funded and State-Managed (ISFM). It is a joint-stock company wholly owned by the state, operating Pershyi, Suspilne Kultura and Suspilne Sport, a national network of local channels including Suspilne Crimea, four core radio brands and a multilingual international radio service.

Ukrinform, the national state news agency, is classified State-Controlled Media (SC). Its institutional history dates to 16 March 1918.

Ukrainian Parliamentary and Government Media is classified State-Controlled Media (SC). It groups the television channel Rada and the newspaper Golos Ukrainy, both state enterprises founded by the Management Office of the Verkhovna Rada apparatus, together with Parliament’s official normative bulletin Vidomosti Verkhovnoi Rady Ukrainy, and Uryadovy Kuryer, a state enterprise founded by the Cabinet of Ministers.

Suspilne’s Supervisory Board has sixteen members, nine representing civil society and seven representing parliamentary factions or groups, chaired by Svitlana Ostapa, and its Management Board chair is selected through competition. By contrast, Ukrinform’s Director-General is appointed by government, its Director-General controls the collegium’s membership and the Cabinet approves its Supervisory Board’s composition. Management at Rada, Golos Ukrainy and Uryadovy Kuryer is appointed through the Verkhovna Rada apparatus or the Cabinet.

The state information architecture was consolidated in January 2026. Cabinet Resolution No. 1509 of 19 November 2025 moved Ukrinform, the Multimedia Platform for Foreign Broadcasting and the Centre for Strategic Communications and Information Security from the Ministry of Culture to the State Committee for Television and Radio Broadcasting, which also holds policy responsibility for foreign broadcasting, international promotion and strategic communications. Ukrinform and the Multimedia Platform, which operates Dom, FREEDOM and the UATV digital brands, remain separate components of the state foreign broadcasting system.

Both newspaper publishers in the parliamentary grouping entered reorganisation in March 2026, Golos Ukrainy on the 3rd and Uryadovy Kuryer on the 20th, with both titles continuing to publish. The Cabinet approved converting Uryadovy Kuryer into a limited-liability company wholly owned by the state.

Funding differs in scale and in transparency. Suspilne received UAH 2.175 billion in 2025 and UAH 2.47 billion in state budget support recorded for 2026, while its statutory floor of 0.2 per cent of prior-year general fund expenditure has gone consistently unmet. Ukrinform’s approved agency allocation was UAH 250.2463 million in 2025, with UAH 271.3571 million planned for 2026 in the ministry’s budget request. The final 2026 parliamentary programme passport provides UAH 80.8742 million, comprising UAH 60.6557 million for television and UAH 20.2185 million for the two publications, while UAH 25.15 million for Uryadovy Kuryer is a planned figure in a budget request rather than a final passport.

Article 4 of the Law on Media prohibits censorship and unlawful interference by state and local authorities and applies to media outlets generally. The 2022 media law, adopted after years of preparation, brought Ukraine into line with European legislation. At Ukrinform and the parliamentary grouping those protections are not supported by independent governance; at Suspilne they are reinforced by the Editorial Charter, an Editorial Board and a civil-society-weighted Supervisory Board.

Media profiles