On March 29, 2022 around 9 a.m., a television crew of a local TV channel “Mart” from Mykolaiv (southern Ukraine), set off to the shooting venue. On the way, they suddenly heard an overwhelming explosion: a Russian missile hit the premises of the Mykolaiv Regional State Administration. It collapsed the central section of a 9-storey building killing 37 people.

The TV channel office is 150 meters away from the attacked Regional Administration. The “Mart” team was safe only because it had left the newsroom before the missile attack. The shock wave broke all the windows of the editorial office. Due to it, “Mart” had to work in a semi-basement room from March 2022 until February 2023.

Because of the advertising market collapse caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, “Mart” lost its income sources and had to reduce the number of employees. The company was not able to pay the salaries to all of them. Nevertheless, it did not stop broadcasting for a single day. “We didn’t have enough people. For example, the operator was also an editor. He was going to the shooting venue, filming everything and afterwards editing it. Each employee performed several roles at the same time,” Yurii Tazarachev, Head of the “Mart” TV channel, says. In summer 2022, due to the mobilization of men and constant shelling of Mykolaiv, only nine out of 24 “Mart” employees continued working.

Although Mykolaiv continues suffering from systematic enemy shelling and missile attacks, its residents require prompt and reliable local information about the progress of the war and reconstruction of the region. That is why, “Mart” focused on covering the recovery of local communities and restoration of damaged or destroyed buildings in the region.

Certainly, “Mart” would hardly be able to create new content and keep working under constant shelling and power cuts without the support of partner and donor organizations. It still requires support to produce local content and provide high-quality information to the residents of the region under these unstable wartime conditions.