Kherson journalists, working in dangerous territory along the front line, refused to mark themselves with PRESS stickers and patches because of the threat of drone attacks by the Russian army.
This is stated in the final text for 2025 by the regional representative of the Institute of Mass Information in Kherson region, Serhii Nikitenko.
“Every media worker in Kherson has a drone detector, without which going to work is already unimaginable, and their own safety rules. Some know the hours of low activity of Russian drones, some plan routes along “safe” streets. Also, in 2025 almost all media workers in the city gave up PRESS stickers,” the text says.
It is noted that the refusal to mark themselves is related to the fact that drone operators consider journalists a desirable target. Russian Telegram channels have written about this repeatedly.
“In Kherson, breaking the rules, you cannot mark yourself as press, because I myself repeatedly ended up in situations when drones that were supposed to fly past you start searching because they saw the inscription or photo equipment. I have hidden under trees like that many times. Once I even began to pray, because it hung over me for so long,” Oleksandr Kornyakov told IMI in September.
Earlier we wrote that the Kherson community is in a zone of ongoing hostilities and regularly comes under attack from various types of weapons. There are currently no safe places in the community.
Recall that in 2025 Russian forces carried out about 146 thousand shellings, as a result 307 people were killed, 2,564 residents of the region were wounded.