Author: Robert Břešťan, HlidaciPes.org, Czech republic
Czech reporter Tomáš Vlach has been visiting Ukraine regularly for more than ten years. Initially as a humanitarian worker for People in Need, and later as a journalist working for the public Czech TV and Reflex weekly magazine. However, if the Ukrainian authorities fail to change their decision, he will have to forget about reporting directly from the scene for at least three years. The official reason for the revocation of the journalist’s accreditation and the ban on entry is said to be the content of a single article from last March, which the Ukrainians “did not like”.
“I could have meekly accepted it, but I didn’t want to. It took three months before I learned through the Czech embassy in Kiev that the ban was allegedly because of an article I had written for Lidové noviny (Czech daily),” says journalist Tomáš Vlach.
The text of the article in question is headlined “For Russia, a country Nazi, for Ukraine, the best of the best. Who was the legendary commander Da Vinci?”. The story is a brief portrait of the Ukrainian fighter Dmytro Kociubaylo, who was killed near Bakhmut last March. Thousands of people, including President Volodymyr Zelensky and then-Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, who was there on an official visit, attended the funeral, which took place in central Kiev.
“I think the text is absolutely fine,” Vlach says. According to information received from the Czech embassy in Kiev, Ukrainians believe that the content “supports the aggressor’s narrative justifying the invasion of Ukraine and may have a negative impact on Ukraine’s reputation and reduce support for Ukraine from the international community”.
Ukraine and freedom of the press
The passages that are supposed to “support the aggressor narrative” are not apparent when reading the text. On the contrary, the article contains, for example, the following sentences: ‘The pro-regime Russian media present the figure of Kotsyubaylo as an insidious ‘rural Nazi’. But there is no indication that he has any Nazi ideological leanings.”
“Personally, I think that the SBU (Security Service of Ukraine, Ukraine’s civilian counter-intelligence agency, ed.) gave me the final bill for everything. For example, for the fact that in the past I also worked as a humanitarian worker in the Donbas or in the Luhansk region. My trips to Crimea probably did not contribute to this either,” he says, adding that after one trip from Crimea the SBU interrogated him.
He believes his former involvement in efforts to secure the release of Ukrainian theologian Ihor Kozlovsky (who was arrested in January 2016 in the separatist Donetsk People’s Republic, accused of espionage and illegal possession of weapons, and convicted) may have played a role in the decision to ban his journalistic activities.
“I took to Donbas a letter written by then Czech President Miloš Zeman on this matter. In the end, we managed to get Kozlovsky out; thanks to Zeman’s intercession with Putin during his visit to the Kremlin,” Vlach summarises. However, he is convinced that he does not mix his roles as an aid worker and journalist together.
“I will continue to write about Ukraine, I do not intend to let it influence my journalistic activities,” Vlach says. In his opinion, Ukraine is not an easy environment to work in and should not be idealised. “I want to keep naming things clearly. That includes that the cause of the war is Russian aggression, that Ukraine is an invaded state that has the right to defend itself and that we must help.”
Two dozen Czech journalists, who have also covered the events in Ukraine to varying degrees, have sided with Tomáš Vlach. At the end of April, they wrote a letter to Yevhen Perebyjnis, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister and former ambassador to the Czech Republic.
“If the refusal of accreditation to Tomáš Vlach remains in force, it would jeopardize the current belief of Czech journalists that they work in Ukraine in an area that respects freedom of the press, that they can do their work without fear of any consequences, and that is why they can bring true news and reports and report truthfully about your country’s struggle with the aggressor. This conviction is shared by a significant part of the Czech public,” says their letter, to which no reply has yet been received.
However, the Czech diplomats in Kiev received a relatively unambiguous reaction from the Ukrainian side, which they subsequently relayed to Tomáš Vlach: “The decision of the Ukrainian side is final and without the possibility of revision. We have tried to lobby on this issue, but without success,” the communication with the Czech embassy says, adding that the Ukrainian side’s response “will always be the same.”
The matter of a sovereign state
Josef Pazderka, a Russia expert and editor-in-chief of Czech Radio Plus, who formulated the letter to Czech journalists, does not want to accept the situation.
“I think that if it is not clear what a person is being punished for, it creates a terribly risky situation for anyone who writes about Ukraine. I respect and respect the right of the Ukrainian side to defend itself against security risks, but I have known Tomas Vlach for a long time and it is hard for me to imagine that he would do something that should be a risk,” he says.
“What the Ukrainian side is citing as the reason – that is, one published article – is insufficient, it seems strange, and I understand it as a serious warning to every Czech journalist. Moreover, we learn on the side that it may actually be for something else, something from the past… I consider it unfair. So let Ukraine lay out its cards, tell us what its suspicions are, otherwise I think it is a big reputational problem for Ukraine,” Pazderka added.
Czech diplomacy has already done its share of work on the case – it has managed to find out at least the officially stated reason for the revocation of accreditation and the entry ban – but it sees the matter as a sovereign state matter.
“It is up to Ukraine, as a sovereign state, to whom it grants journalistic accreditation. You have to ask the Ukrainian side about the reasons why they have done so,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mariana Wernerová said. But the Ukrainian side is not responding to questions.
Tomáš Vlach is not the only European journalist who suddenly found himself on the Ukrainian index. In 2022, for example, Matilde Kymer, a well-known Danish Radio journalist, lost her accreditation.
She and her employer at first tried in vain to find out what the reason was. Eventually, it was revealed that the SBU was behind the decision, and that it was bothered by the fact that Kimer had worked in Moscow in the past, posted photos of Russia on social media, and allegedly promoted “Russian narratives.”
In Denmark, her case has caused a stir in both the press and the political arena; the Danish Foreign Minister has personally addressed the issue. In January 2023, Kimer got her accreditation back – it took more than four months.
“I have communicated with Matilde, and according to her, the only way is political pressure, or for a specific politician to intercede on your behalf with the Ukrainian party. But I, as a journalist, do not want to ask a politician to lobby for me, even though I feel it is a big kick from the Ukrainian side,” says Tomáš Vlach.
