Helga

The operation to cover up war crimes in Oleshky has begun.

I want to take a moment to acknowledge my own mistake in all of this. Until a few hours ago, I genuinely believed the animated map in my video had been created from scratch by my editing team. I had no idea it came from The Kyiv Independent, or that their logo had been removed. I only discovered this when I looked into the copyright complaint. I should have checked where the material came from before publishing it, and I take full responsibility for not doing so. Working independently without the resources or oversight of a major newsroom comes with challenges, but that’s not an excuse. Ultimately, everything published on my channel is my responsibility, and I need to make sure the standards I expect from others are reflected in my own work. I care deeply about the stories I tell, the people who trust me to tell them, and the journalists whose work helps inform them. The Kyiv Independent’s team deserved proper credit, and I’m genuinely sorry that didn’t happen. I still believe their decision to issue a copyright strike and remove a video with 1.3 million views was disproportionate. I reached out privately by email to try to resolve the matter, and I wish we’d been able to deal with it through a conversation rather than having it escalate publicly. But I don’t want that disagreement to distract from my own responsibility here. My focus now is making sure this doesn’t happen again. I’ll be reviewing how my editing team sources and credits material, putting better checks in place before publication, and making sure we show other journalists the same respect we expect for our own reporting. I’m proud of the work we’ve produced, but I know there’s always room to improve. I want my journalism to be as accurate, responsible and professional as possible, particularly when telling stories as important as those coming out of Ukraine. I will learn from this and get back to telling the stories that matter.