Perugia highlight: keeping Ukraine in the news

The Ukraine war has dominated the news agenda for the last three years, ever since Russia launched its full-scale invasion into Ukraine in 2022. But, as with many such heavy news topics, audiences' interest or bandwidth can begin to wane after a certain amount of time.

At the International Journalism Festival in Perugia yesterday, (10 April 2025), media professionals discussed how to maintain audience interest in the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

Misconceptions and daily reality

"People are divided into basically two categories," says Daryna Shevchenko, CEO of The Kyiv Independent, an English-speaking Ukrainian news publication that launched at the start of the war, and has since amassed 17k paying members.

"One [part] thinks that there are still flights from Kyiv to anywhere. And the other thinks that when you live in Kyiv, you're like Rambo, you just like navigate the shelling and the gunfire all the time," she says.

"The reality is tough, it's the constant navigation between trying to live a life but also living in the war."

Outsiders often misunderstand life in Ukraine today. But this is precisely why glimpses into daily Ukrainian reality have excelled. The most in-demand stories on The Kyiv Independent are those showing the Ukrainian perspective on global events.

Its TikTok account, with 89k subscribers, features simple "morning routines" that incorporate air raid alerts regularly goes viral, offering audiences what Shevchenko describes as "a window you look into but still stay safe to see how Ukrainians are doing there."

Finding human stories beyond military updates

Alicia Alamillos, editor-in-chief of the international desk at El Confidencial in Spain, emphasised the importance of finding unique narratives beyond military developments. "It's sometimes very difficult to tell the people stories," she says, noting that audiences often feel war coverage is repetitive or emotionally taxing to engage with.

However, small details can illustrate larger issues: "When I went to Vorodianka, what struck me the most was a teddy bear without the eyes. It's not a child, it's just a teddy bear. But still, you try to find that, you then choose this human story to try to explain what happened."

In Avdiivka, rather than focusing solely on military aspects, she connected the destruction of a coal factory to Russia's strategy of crippling Ukraine economically. "It's about the economy, it's about the energy, about how Russia wants Ukraine crippled and poor and desperate to use them," she explained.

The value of on-the-ground reporting

For Sonia Delesalle-Stolper, chief foreign editor at Libération in France, having journalists on the ground in Ukraine remains essential. The title has maintained a strong commitment to Ukraine coverage, producing 134 front pages on Ukraine or related subjects in the past year, in an attempt to keep readers engaged.

"War is sad," she explains. "What is even sadder is the fact that war becomes boring for readers after a while. And it's a fact of news, basically."

Human interest stories provide a more rounded and digestable view into Ukraine, including one about an 18-year-old from Russian-occupied Luhansk who escaped to Kyiv and was hearing Ukrainian language for the first time.

Broader implications for European security

Coverage on Ukraine has also brought about broader discussions about European defence, conscription, identity, and critically, security.

Shevchenko emphasised, too, that the war has implications beyond Ukraine: "We should just be reminding people how close [Europe is] to a full-scale war, the biggest land war in Europe since World War II."

This comes with practical challenges - ranging from travel difficulties, security concerns, and budget constraints for fixers - as well as the emotional burden felt by local journalists, especially.

We used a transcription tool, Good Tape, and a generative AI ClaudeAI, to help structure this article before it was edited by a human

Free daily newsletter

If you like our news and feature articles, you can sign up to receive our free daily (Mon-Fri) email newsletter (mobile friendly).