Media Center Ukraine Producer Department

Dmytro Slobodyanik began volunteering at the start of the full-scale invasion. At the time, he was still in school, and in his free time he developed devices for the Ukrainian military. At first, he made periscopes, and later found schematics online for soldering charging stations. Dmytro also learned to build drones and batteries on his own.

Now he is a college student and has a new workshop that the military helped him find. Dmytro has made his devices more powerful. He prints some parts himself on a 3D printer, and purchases the rest thanks to donations.

By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with  Dmytro Slobodyanik online or in person in the Vinnytsia region.

• volunteers
• Vinnytsia

If you are interested in this topic, you can obtain the subjects’ contacts from the Producer Department of Media Center Ukraine.

Stepan Vlasyuk joined the Ukrainian military in 2014, when russia first attacked Ukraine. While carrying out one of his combat missions, Stepan was seriously wounded and lost his leg.

After his injury, treatment, and prosthetics, Stepan found a new calling—a job at the technology company BlueBird Tech, where veterans and specialists are trained to work with modern military technologies, including drones and electronic warfare systems.

Journalists can connect with Stepan Vlasyuk and the BlueBird Tech team both online and offline, by prior arrangement.

• casualties
• military

If you are interested in this topic, you can obtain the subjects’ contacts from the Producer Department of Media Center Ukraine.

Hanna is the mother of two sons and the wife of a soldier who died in the war. Their family first lost their home back in 2014. Before that, the family lived in Olenivka in the Donetsk region. After hostilities began, the family left with their four-year-old child, leaving their home and all their belongings behind in the occupied territory. After several moves, they settled in the town of Bilozerske in the Ukraine-controlled part of Donetsk Oblast. They bought a home, her husband won a grant and started his own business, and the couple had a second son.

In 2022, due to the full-scale russian invasion, they were forced to leave everything behind once again. The family donated their home to the Ukrainian Armed Forces—Ukrainian soldiers lived there for a time.

In the summer of 2024, the husband joined the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. He completed training and served as an operator of a multiple launch rocket system. He was listed as missing in action as of October 23, 2024. Four months later, the family was informed that the DNA of a body repatriated during an exchange matched his samples. He was buried in March 2025.

After her husband’s death, the woman was left with her children in a new city without the support of relatives. The hardest part, she said, was telling her sons about their father’s death.

The family received psychological support from the “Children of Heroes” charitable foundation. The support of specialists became a crucial part of helping the children and their mother adapt to their new reality.

The family currently lives in Kyiv, renting an apartment. The older son spent almost his entire childhood moving from place to place, while the younger one was born during the war.

By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with the family online.

• children
• dead
• military
• women

If you are interested in this topic, you can obtain the subjects’ contacts from the Producer Department of Media Center Ukraine.

Since the beginning of last school year, schoolchildren in the village of Bohdanivka, Kyiv oblast, have been able to study in a modular Temporary Educational Space (TES).  The space is accessible, with a generator for uninterrupted power supply, comfortable furniture, modern tablets and multimedia panels. The TES has six classrooms and now serves more than  200 schoolchildren who previously had to travel to a neighboring village.

Bohdanivka was occupied in 2022. russian soldiers set up camp in the local school and burned it down when they withdrew. They also blew up the kindergarten, where they had stored ammunition, leaving the village without any educational facilities.

By prior arrangement, journalists can cover the work of the modular temporary educational space in Bohdanivka.

Background: This project is being implemented by IREX in partnership with the SavED Charitable Foundation and the GoGlobal NGO. They work in close cooperation with local communities who have lost their educational institutions due to russian aggression.

• children
• occupation
• russian crimes
• Kyiv

If you are interested in this topic, you can obtain the subjects’ contacts from the Producer Department of Media Center Ukraine.