Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has intensified the need to preserve cultural heritage and audiovisual archives — especially those documenting contemporary history. The role archives play in this process, and particularly the role of Suspilne Ukraine archives, was discussed during the panel “Archives as a Form of Memorialization,” held at Sens bookstore in Kyiv on 3 February. The event was organised by the Embassy of France in Ukraine and the French international technical cooperation agency Expertise France together with Suspilne Ukraine.
In his opening remarks, Head of the Managing Board of Suspilne Ukraine Mykola Chernotytskyi thanked the French partners and emphasised the importance of the company’s archives:
“Suspilne is a young broadcaster established in 2017, but we inherited hundreds of thousands of recordings from regional state TV and radio companies across the country. It is a colossal amount of data. Today our journalists document the war, war crimes, and their consequences — and all of this becomes part of Suspilne Ukraine’s archive.”
In 2023, with partner support, Suspilne Ukraine launched the Suspilne Mediateka platform, which already features more than two thousand archival items. The team faces major challenges: a significant share of the archive is still not digitised, there is a shortage of specialists and equipment, and physical media remain at risk of destruction due to the war.
Earlier, Suspilne Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Expertise France aimed at developing archival practices, preserving audiovisual heritage, and exchanging international expertise in the digitalisation of media archives. As part of the partnership, a series of study visits by the Suspilne team to France is planned to facilitate knowledge exchange in archival work. The first introductory visit took place in autumn 2025 at the initiative of Héloïse Marmouset de La Taille, Attaché for Higher Education and Science at the Embassy of France in Ukraine, who became one of the initiators of deepening this cooperation.
Cultural Counsellor at the Embassy of the French Republic in Ukraine and Director of the French Institute in Ukraine, Guillaume Habert, noted that protecting audiovisual archives in Ukraine today is an investment in future justice:
“Preservation, standards, and controlled access are not just technical requirements. They are the foundations of accountability. Today’s media materials must become evidence tomorrow — in the pursuit of justice in courts.”
Guillaume Habert emphasised that France is ready to share experience and technological solutions in archiving with Suspilne Ukraine, including in training a new generation of specialists who will work with modern forms of archives.
On the eve of the discussion, Suspilne Ukraine signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with Expertise France aimed at developing archival practices, preserving audiovisual heritage, and exchanging international expertise in the digitisation of media archives. Director of Expertise France’s office in Ukraine, Sofiia Oliinyk, stressed that this partnership marks a new stage of collaboration between Suspilne Ukraine and its French partners, helping preserve memory and promote it both in Ukraine and internationally:
“The way we preserve memory today determines how we will remember our present tomorrow — not only in Ukraine but beyond. This is a contribution to recovery and European integration.”
During the discussion, Head of the Suspilne Mediateka Department at Suspilne Ukraine, Taisiia Turchyn, spoke about the shift in approaches to archiving since the start of the full-scale invasion.
“News is a priority, but a news story lives for one day. For truth to live forever, it must be archived,” Turchyn said.
According to her, Suspilne Ukraine has moved to preserving not only finished stories but also all raw materials, including those that cannot yet be published.
“We preserve all raw war-related footage. Some of it is available on the Suspilne Mediateka platform, but that is only a small percentage. A significant amount of material is stored in an internal archival database, while some remains in a secure environment without access even for journalists. This is sensitive content that cannot always be published immediately, but it is extremely important for the future — as potential evidence of war crimes, as material for research and documentary filmmaking,” she added.
The discussion also featured film and media historian Christian Delage (Institute of Contemporary History, Université Paris 8 / CNRS), Head of Suspilne Mediateka Department Taisiia Turchyn, Associate Professor and Academic Director of the MA programme “Memory Studies and Public History” at the Kyiv School of Economics Anton Liagusha, Head of the Central State Audiovisual and Electronic Archive Tetiana Yemelianova, and was moderated by Radio Kultura executive producer, journalist, translator and writer Iryna Slavinska.
Film and media historian Christian Delage joined the discussion online. He specialises in audiovisual archives, visual history, and the role of images in shaping collective memory and justice.
After the discussion, Head of the Supervisory Board of Suspilne Ukraine Svitlana Ostapa thanked everyone working with archives and the Suspilne Mediateka team:
“The archives preserve the history of Ukraine as an independent state and the history of the Ukrainian people — not only over decades but even across a century. I thank the journalists who continue preserving this history during wartime. And I would like to personally thank Taisiia Turchyn, Head of the Mediateka Department, who is not a classical archivist. She was a journalist and editor, and thanks to her dedication she managed to systematise this work at Suspilne Ukraine,” Ostapa said.
Following the reform of state television and radio, Suspilne Ukraine inherited vast volumes of video and audio materials — not only from central but also from all regional broadcasters. The team digitises these recordings, organises them into catalogues, and publishes them on the Suspilne Mediateka platform, where anyone can watch or listen.
Suspilne Ukraine is an independent media company with a strong presence across all platforms: the TV channels Pershyi, Suspilne Kultura, Suspilne Sport, and a national network of local channels; the radio stations Ukrainske Radio, Radio Promin, Radio Kultura, Radiotochka. Find only verified news on suspilne.media, as well as on our national and local digital platforms. We broadcast in minority languages, represent Ukraine at the Eurovision Song Contest, develop the children’s platform Brobaks, and train media professionals through the Public Media Academy. Our Suspilne Mediateka platform offers unique video and audio archives dating from the 1920s to today. Defending freedom in Ukraine.
Photo by Anastasia Mantach
