Today Ukrinform turns 107 years old

Originally called the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency, it began its work during the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921. A special circular telegram from the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets of Ukraine stated: “The Ukrainian Telegraph Agency — UTA has begun its work. Its main office is temporarily located in Yekaterinoslav, in the building of the former provincial government, room 2-a.”

With the formation of the Ukrainian state under the leadership of Hetman Skoradzki, the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency (UTA) began to function in Kyiv. From May to November 1918, it was headed by Dmytro Dontsov, who also headed the Printing Bureau. UTA published its reports in the “Bulletins of the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency” and “Telegrams of the Ukrainian Telegraph Agency”.

Since then, the agency has changed its name several times. UTA, BUP, UKRROSTA, RATAU… And this is far from a complete list.

Among the founders of the media business in Ukraine who worked at Ukrinform were many famous public and cultural figures, including Rudolf Galperin, Pavlo Tychyna, Yuresha, Ivan Le, Serhiy Pylypenko, Vodymyr Narbut and many other writers and journalists.

Stalin's repressions did not bypass this institution: the first leaders of RATAU, Vodymyr Narbut and Ivan Lakiza, as well as dozens of other employees, died in the GULAG camps.

Under the name RATAU, the agency existed for almost 70 years. After Ukraine declared independence, the news agency received its current name, Ukrinform, becoming national.

Today, Ukrinform is the leading news service of Ukraine, cooperating with many foreign news organizations and being a member of the European Alliance of News Agencies.

For more than ten years, the Ukrinform team not only covered the Russian-Ukrainian war, reporting from the frontline and frontline territories, but also directly defended our country with weapons in hand. Currently, 19 Ukrinform employees, both men and women, serve in the army.

Almost 10 years ago, on the night of September 4, 2014, at the very beginning of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, Ukrinform journalist E. Zadoyanchuk died as a result of a Russian strike near Lugansk. He became the first journalist to die in the Russian-Ukrainian war. E. rejected the agency's offer to defer the draft, saying: “It's fate,” and went to war, despite his poor eyesight, wearing thick glasses…

To our great regret, this year we also lost our man in the ongoing war: on the night of February 26, a Russian drone hit a residential building in the village of Kryukovshchyna in the Kyiv region, killing Ukrinform journalist Tetyana Kulik, who was the author and host of the project “Nation Invincible” and acted as editor-in-chief of the multimedia department. Her husband was also killed in the drone attack.

It should be noted that, despite the war, the agency currently maintains the largest regional and foreign network of its own correspondents. Our journalists report from almost all regions of Ukraine and 10 countries: the USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Panama, Turkey and China.

The Ukrinform website publishes more than 300 news items daily, as well as exclusive commentary and interviews, photo reports and infographics, providing readers with a complete and objective picture of the latest events.

News and publications are published in Ukrainian, English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese and Portuguese.

Ukrinform also launched several multimedia projects (Our Commanders of Victory, Kramatorsk Station, Nation of the Invincible, Behind the Back) with the participation of Ukrainian military personnel, veterans and other public figures.

In addition, the agency produces professional information products: thematic news feeds, information packages, bulletins, digests. Among Ukrinform's subscribers and partners are electronic and printed media, Ukrainian television and radio companies, foreign media, government agencies and enterprises, embassies and consulates, enterprises and banks.

Ukrinform has a professional photo service and the largest historical photo archive in Ukraine, containing more than 500,000 photos. Our regional and foreign photo correspondents add dozens of new photo reports to the database every day.