Wartime Adaptation: The Case of Media Regulation in Ukraine in the Wake of Russia's Invasion

Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent war have created new challenges for Ukrainian civil society. Chief among those is striking a balance between civil liberties and national security. This paper examines the methods by which the Ukrainian media have been censored since the invasion. Through semi-structured interviews with Ukrainian journalists, I found that state censorship is most prominent with issues related to the military. Additionally, several reporters discussed the challenges of navigating self-censorship as they straddled the dual identities of being both Ukrainian and journalists. Noticeably absent is any media control imposed by the news outlets themselves, with reporters noting that they were given absolute freedom to pursue stories that they viewed as important. These findings suggest that reporters have to deal with disconnected forms of censorship rather than a centrally planned and executed process.