Mission and approach
DII-Ukraine describes how its core mission is “to be a driving force for a united and resilient Ukrainian society through quality journalism and dialogue.” The organisation focuses on countering propaganda, information reintegration, recovery and reconstruction, de-occupation, community development, democracy, and human rights. DII-Ukraine implements its mission through several interconnected areas of work that form a comprehensive support ecosystem for independent journalism.
- Novyny Donbasu is a regional online media outlet from Donetsk that has existed since 2003. DII-Ukraine initially grew out of the regional newspaper, making Novyny Donbasu the predecessor of the organisation. Its audience currently exceeds 1.6 million users on its website and 375.5 million organic views annually across all social media platforms, including a significant share of views from temporarily occupied territories.
- The Relocated Media Cluster is a network of independent Ukrainian media from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Crimea that were forced to relocate or continue operating in frontline areas and cover issues related to the temporarily occupied territories, while maintaining their audiences, trust, and influence in their regions. They bring together relocated independent media into a single network for sharing experience, resources, and solutions.
- The Donbas Media Forum also emerged following the forced relocation and grew from an industry event for displaced journalists into a national forum focused on regional and local media. For 11 years, it has provided a safe space for broad dialogue on contemporary professional challenges, pressing issues facing Ukrainian newsrooms, and the role of the media in wartime. In 2025, the Forum brought together almost 1,500 participants and became Ukraine’s largest media event.
- Business & Media brunches systematically build a culture of partnership and sustainable dialogue between businesses and independent media and turn this dialogue into concrete partnerships. In parallel to the monthly brunches, DII-Ukraine conducts research into how Ukrainian businesses and media approach partnerships with each other and organises joint educational activities with partners, including media literacy, cybersecurity, and OSINT trainings, workshops, and webinars.
Overall, all these DII-Ukraine projects are implemented by a team of 35 professionals with extensive experience working on sensitive topics, countering disinformation, and creating journalistic content for audiences directly affected by war and occupation.
DMF Day 3, 2025, by Roman Chornyi
Recent achievements
Every year, DII-Ukraine organises the Donbas Media Forum. It is a conference created by Ukrainian journalists for journalists, media managers, and other media professionals and experts. Their team described the event as “a national platform with a regional heart.” This year, DII-Ukraine is preparing the 11th Forum, which will take place in Kyiv on 8–10 October.
The first Forum was held in 2015, when, following the outbreak of Russia’s war in 2014, journalists from Donetsk and Luhansk regions were among the first to face new challenges in their professional work — from relocating newsrooms to covering developments along the Frontline.
Over the years, the Forum has been held in Kyiv (2015, 2023, 2024, 2025), Mariupol (2016), and Sviatohirsk (2017) in Donetsk region, Kharkiv (2018, 2019), online (2020, 2021) during the pandemic, and Warsaw (2023) in the DMF Global format. The organisers have one wish that remains the same every year: To hold the Forum in its Ukrainian hometown of Donetsk, which has remained under Russian occupation since 2014.
Impact on Communities and the Media Landscape
Since its launch, the Forum has brought together an increasing number of media
professionals from across Ukraine and around the world who cover issues related to Donbas.
In 2018, the Forum became a major platform for regional journalists and local media from all
regions of Ukraine. In 2025, it became the country’s largest media event: during the 10th
anniversary Forum, 9 exhibitions, 12 film screenings, and 75 panel discussions and
workshops took place over three days, attracting 1,426 participants.
“This growth in audience clearly demonstrates the media sector’s need for a safe space for dialogue about the professional challenges of today. This is particularly important now, as regular missile attacks, the economic consequences of the war and their impact on the advertising market, and shrinking donor funding mean that there are fewer and fewer such professional spaces for media workers.”
– Kateryna Zhemchuzhnikova, head of the communications department of the event
Day 3, 2025, by Roman Chornyi
Challenges and Strategic Approaches
The biggest challenge DII-Ukraine faces is fundraising, as the Forum is only one of the organisation’s projects. At the same time, the scale of the event creates many challenges for the DII-Ukraine team. Yet the event’s organisers remain committed to their cause:
“The goal of holding an annual conference created by journalists for journalists, and the ideas and issues discussed by participants, always outweigh the difficulties involved in preparing it.”
The event’s budget is not built around a single major donor but sustains itself through a patchwork model. As a result, finding a large number of partners and aligning shared priorities always requires considerable time and effort. The DII-Ukraine team therefore engages a broad range of partners from the media sector, civil society organisations, and humanitarian initiatives to organise the Forum in as democratic a way as possible, based on the principle of co-creation.
Another major challenge for organising a large Forum is the security situation during a
prolonged full-scale war. That is why, every year, the Organising Committee equips the
underground part of the venue so that, in the event of an increased threat, activities can be
moved to safer locations. However, as the number of participants grows, it becomes
increasingly difficult to find an underground venue in Kyiv that can accommodate so many
People. It is also always necessary to plan for the connection of high-capacity generators, so that the event can continue even if the city’s civilian infrastructure is damaged.
Despite these challenges, the Forum remains a safe space for hundreds of journalists to discuss professional challenges during such difficult and uncertain times.
“In the uncertain times we are living through during the full-scale war, it is quite difficult to plan even our everyday lives, let alone plan Ukraine’s largest media event. However, openness and co-creation have always been our strengths, and this is precisely what helps us engage many partners in creating the Forum. The diversity of the program, which is also shaped through the joint efforts of all our partners, allows participants to always find something interesting and useful for themselves,”
–Lyubov Rakovytsia, Head of the Donbas Media Forum Organising Committee and DII-Ukraine
Connect with DII-Ukraine
📧Lyubov Rakovytsia, Head of DII-Ukraine, lyubov.rakovytsia@dii.dn.ua
🔗Website: https://dii.dn.ua/en/
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