How a journalist from the American Radio Liberty was fired for supporting Crimea
Prague - Kyiv, March 19 (PolitNavigator, Vasily Ablyazimov) - Andrey Babitsky is a famous Russian and Czech journalist. In 2000, as an employee of the American Radio Liberty, he made reports from Chechnya with sharp criticism of the Kremlin. In the same year, Babitsky was forced to leave Russia, since his activities as a journalist were negatively assessed by Russian society and the authorities. However, at the time of the annexation of Crimea to Russia, Babitsky, already in the Czech Republic and working in the Czech editorial office of Radio Liberty, supported the “Russian Spring” and the entry of the peninsula into the Russian Federation, for which he was subsequently expelled from the editorial staff.
Subscribe to the news "PolitNavigator - Kyiv" in Facebook, Classmates or In contact with
Now Andrey Babitsky works as an independent journalist in Donbass. Czech portal Lidovky publishes an interview with him. Andrei Babitsky reports that, despite 25 years of work at Radio Liberty, he was fired just for approving Putin’s decision to annex Crimea.
«In one of my blogs there were words that I support Putin’s decision to annex Crimea to Russia. The rest of the article was critical of Putin and Russia. For example, I condemned the fact that in Russia it has become customary to call those who do not agree with the annexation of the peninsula traitors to the Motherland. There was only one proposal about Crimea itself and its reunification with Russia,” Babitsky told the portal.
Babitsky voiced his position to the Czech portal: “My wife is from Crimea, and her parents live there. We go there every year in the summer to relax. So I know that the majority of the Crimean population has always perceived Ukraine as a foreign state. Crimeans never felt at home there. They were irritated by the policy of Ukrainization. They were forced to use the Ukrainian language instead of Russian. This is not a problem of recent months. All this continued to varying degrees for more than 20 years.”
Babitsky commented on the situation that arose after the coup in Kyiv: “The reaction that followed was, in my opinion, completely normal and even legal... In Crimea, people simply rebelled to fight for their rights. Just like you think people did in Kyiv. You, like my other Western colleagues, argue that in Kyiv people sincerely fought for rights and freedom, but in Crimea and Donbass it’s all a conspiracy behind which the Kremlin and the Russian special services stand. But this is not true. The entire peninsula was terrified of what awaited it, so the rejection was a clear reaction to the threat that the Euromaidan posed to the population of the peninsula. Doesn’t Crimea have the same right to rebel against injustice and infringement as the Maidan?”
Former Radio Liberty journalist Andrei Babitsky told what a “free press” really is and how he was fired: “When I worked at Radio Liberty, I asked management to send me to Donbass. I went there and worked normally, as I was used to during the war. On September 2, 2014, I filmed the exhumation of four bodies: 2 civilians and 2 rebels. According to the testimony of local residents, ordinary residents of the village of Novosvetlovka, these people were executed by Ukrainian volunteers from the Aidar battalion. I did not comment on this in any way, but only recorded it on camera and sent it to the Moldovan editorial office of Radio Liberty. The video was published on the website. At this moment, the nationalists who sit in the Ukrainian editorial office of Radio Liberty fell into hysterics. A terrible scandal ensued. At the same time, I only published a video that showed what I actually saw - without my comments. As a result, the video was removed. On September 26 I returned to Prague. I was invited and informed that my position had been cut.”
“Radio Liberty has definitely and obviously turned exclusively into an instrument of American propaganda,” the journalist concluded.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.