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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Poland’s public broadcaster, TVP, has launched a new channel in Ukrainian. Called Slawa (transliterated as slava in English and meaning “honour” in Ukrainian), the station began broadcasting on Monday this week.
It aims to present “the most important information about Ukraine” as well as to “to convey the Polish and European point of view on the processes taking place in Ukraine and in the world”, said TVP in a statement.
“The editorial office will focus on the common geostrategic goals of Ukraine and Poland, and not on the political interests of individual figures or elites,” they added.
“[Its] activities are [intended] to strengthen the ties between Poland and Ukraine…[through] reliable journalism and interviews with experts and opinion leaders.”
Maria Górska, the head of the new station’s editorial offices, said that the “project will multiply the efforts of both countries in the joint fight against the aggressor, in [achieving] victory over dictatorships and in strengthening democracy in Central Europe”.
The new channel will broadcast for six hours a day, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. Polish time (which is one hour behind Kyiv time). It also offers a website providing news stories in Ukrainian.
Slawa is an initiative of TVP’s Media Center for Abroad (Ośrodka Mediów dla Zagranicy), which was set up in December to coordinate TVP’s existing foreign-language broadcasting in English, Belarusian and Russia.
TVP, which is funded by a combination of licence fees, state subsidies and commercial activities, has not revealed how much it plans to spend on its new Ukrainian channel.
Polish state TV's English-language news channel has been suspended and its director fired as part of the new government's takeover of public media
The former ruling PiS party, which oversaw the creation of TVP World, has criticised the decision https://t.co/w5RfbLmncA
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 28, 2023
Poland has been one of Ukraine’s closest allies since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. Warsaw has provided Kyiv with extensive military, humanitarian and diplomatic support. Poland also welcomed millions of refugees fleeing the conflict.
There remain almost one million Ukrainian refugees in Poland as well as a similar number of Ukrainian economic migrants, making them by far the country’s largest group of foreign nationals.
In 2022, a number of Polish media outlets, both private and public, launched Ukrainian-language services, though many of those have subsequently ceased activity.
The proportion of Ukrainians who hold a positive opinion of Poles has fallen from 83% to 41% in the last two years.
Most identified border blockades by Polish farmers and the WWII Volhynia massacres as the main causes of disputes between the two nations https://t.co/Ty9hU8hiQV
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) December 16, 2024
Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.
Main image credit: Slawa
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
