Germany presented Venediktov with a prize for freedom of the press: they wanted to award a Ukrainian woman with him, but she refused

Former editor-in-chief of the Ekho Moskvy radio station Alexey Venediktov received the international Johann Philipp Palm Prize for freedom of speech and freedom of the press, reports DW.

Photo: IStock

The award ceremony took place in the German city of Schorndorf on Sunday, December 4th.

In justifying the award to Venediktov, member of the board of trustees Seyran Ates recalled the times of the Cold War before the fall of the Berlin Wall. “We must not lose sight of where this war in Ukraine will take us. We must not forget and must remember the suffering and disaster that the Wall brought to the people of the entire Soviet Union. Although Venediktov maintained ties to the Kremlin, his position as a journalist is clear: he is a supporter of freedom. The fact that members of the opposition also spoke out on his radio station shows courage and conviction,” Ates said.

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Together with Venediktov, this year the award was received by the Association of Municipal Radio and Television Stations of the Congo (CORACON), whose journalists, as the jury emphasizes, “for a salary that is barely enough to live on, confront the brutal violence and bitter poverty in the Congo with information and education".

Preisverleihung morgen in Schorndorf: Öffentlicher Festakt zur Verleihung des #PalmPreis an @aavst20551 and @CORACON_DRC Let's celebrate #PressFreedom ! Nous celebrons la #LiberteDeLaPresse ! #FreeMySpeech #FürFreiheitGegenGewalt pic.twitter.com/kTdVAaUdB3

— Annette Krönert für Palm-Stiftung e.V. (@JPP1806) December 3, 2022

The award is presented every two years, its cash equivalent is $20 thousand.

The organizers of the award, the Palm Foundation, wanted to nominate Ukrainian journalist Oksana Romanyuk together with Venediktov for this award. They wrote about this to a journalist back in the spring. But Romanyuk refused.

“I read that Venediktov became “the first Russian to receive a German prize for freedom of speech.” And I probably became the first Ukrainian to refuse her,” the journalist wrote on Facebook. “But I can’t imagine how I could physically stand on the same stage and share the same award with Venediktov.” With an official Kremlin liberal, a political strategist who has repeatedly promoted Kremlin propaganda, with one who publicly called Putin his “only boss,” boasted of connections with Lavrov, Peskov, and other functionaries, and so on.”

Romanyuk says that Venediktov was aware of their joint nomination - he should also have been informed about this in an official letter.

“And he had the conscience to go and receive this award, and say that he is “the first Russian journalist who ...,” says Romanyuk.

The reason for the refusal is easy to understand. In recent interviews, Venediktov has stated that Russia is not at war with Ukraine.

He said that Ukraine is just a territory where there is a confrontation between Russia and the collective West led by the United States, reports Warfare.

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Venediktov described the complete incapacity and complete dependence of Ukraine, pointing out that all issues would be discussed by Moscow only with Washington and Brussels.

“You must understand that Vladimir Putin does not view Ukraine as a subject of this story. He is not at war with Ukraine, his team is not at war with Ukraine, his army is not at war with Ukraine. We there (Russia in Ukraine) are at war with America,” Venediktov told Ukrainian journalists.

Romanyuk says she has no complaints against the organizers.

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“They are very far from our realities. This is Western European Christian ethics, peacemakers, reach out to each other. We corresponded with them for a long time, and continue to correspond. It is not easy for them to go beyond the established picture of the world and understand what is happening here. But I know that I still managed to provoke questions and internal discussions in them,” she says.

“We have a lot of work ahead and a lot of explanations to dispel the Russian imperial magic,” added Romanyuk.

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