The Assasination Of Pavel Sheremet: 'Investigative Journalism Has A Huge Role To Play Here'

What You Need To Know:

✓ Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet was assassinated in central Kyiv by a car bomb while driving in the car of his partner, ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ owner and founding editor Olena Prytula.

✓ While journalists both in and outside Ukraine have been killed since Gongadze, “the death of a journalist doesn’t make the international news unless there’s a special spin to it;”

✓ “Investigative journalism has a huge role to play here,” and will be crucial in assisting in the investigation and looking into motives behind the latest high-profile assassination;

✓ “The way this killing will affect how Ukraine is viewed abroad is not the killing, but the investigation.”

Belarusian journalist Pavel Sheremet was assassinated in central Kyiv by a car bomb while driving in the car of his partner, ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ owner and founding editor Olena Prytula. Sheremet, an exile from Belarus who left a job at Russian television for Ukraine five years ago, was commuting to ‘Radio Vesti’ for his morning show when the bomb went off. This death comes sixteen years after the murder of ‘Ukrainska Pravda’ journalist, Georgy Gongadze.

While journalists both in and outside Ukraine have been killed since Gongadze, according to Marta Dyczok, a professor of International History and Politics at the University of Western Ontario, “the death of a journalist doesn’t make the international news unless there’s a special spin to it,” adding that the spin in Gongadze’s death was the implication of Ukraine’s then president, Leonid Kuchma.

Journalist Andriy Kulykov believed at first that this targeted attack against Sheremet was aimed to “intimidate Ukrainian journalists,” but now realizes that when Ukrainian journalists are attacked, they unite and fight back. Dyczok advises that “investigative journalism has a huge role to play here,” and will be crucial in assisting in the investigation and looking into motives behind the latest high-profile assassination.

“The way this killing will affect how Ukraine is viewed abroad is not the killing, but the investigation,” says Dyczok. According to her, President Poroshenko and Ukrainian authorities have taken the right initial steps and made the correct statements and promises, and she hopes a proper investigation will be carried out.

Hromadske’s Nataliya Gumenyuk and Andriy Kulykov spoke to Marta Dyczok, professor of International History and Politics during live broadcast of The Sunday Show on July 24th in Kyiv.