Marian ZHYTARYUK, PhD*
Victoria ZHYTARYUK**
Keywords: media, death of journalists, russia’s war in Ukraine, russysm, geopolitical division of the world, Baltic and Black Sea Union
On the night of February 24, 2022, russia launched a valuable invasion of Ukraine. Missile attacks were carried out on a large part of the airfields and air defense forces in the border area. Considerable russian forces were thrown to capture the Ukrainian capital – Kyiv, as well as Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr. In the south, the russysts with outnumber forces defeated Ukrainian troops and marched through the Kherson region; in the east, they captured Berdyansk and Melitopol. For three months they tried to take Mariupol, which was heroically defending itself, under their control. After the failure of the operation to “capture Kyiv”, the enemy withdrew and focused its main efforts on regrouping to strengthen its ranks in the storming of Donbass. As of June 12, according to Ukrainian officials, the alignment of russian forces in artillery, tanks, and armored cars to Ukrainian ones is 10 to 1. Although it is easier to defend than to attack, but in accordance with the enemy’s total superiority, it is already heroism. To achieve parity, Ukraine lacks the strength and resources promised by its partners. The question about that, how long, as far as effectively the Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to resist the invaders, is opened. Every day of delay means hundreds, thousands of lives: military and civilian, burned cities and villages, destroyed critical infrastructure. In its hatred to Ukrainians, the enemy uses the most brutal actions: in addition to such navy missiles as “Caliber”, hypersonic missiles such as “Dagger” and “Iskander”, artillery fire from jet rocket systems of volleys fire, mortars, aerial bombardment (including heavy with ammunition of 3 and 5 tons), it uses prohibited by the war rules types of mines, phosphate and cluster munitions, destroys hospitals, schools,
1 From the beginning of the invasion in Ukraine (and till Ukraine’s victory) as most of colleagues in mass media, I, on principle, write with lowercases names of an aggressor: russia, rf, rassysts, putin, moscow.
* Doctor of Science in Social Communications, Full Professor, Head of Department of Foreign Press and Information Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine
** Master of Journalism, translation from Ukrainian