Russia’s UNESCO Mission Criticises Report on Journalists’ Safety

Dragon Media News Desk

Russia’s mission to UNESCO has accused the organisation of excluding Russian-reported deaths of journalists from its latest report on the safety of journalists.

In a statement, the mission said the report prepared for the Intergovernmental Council of UNESCO’s International Programme for the Development of Communication omitted a significant number of journalists whom Russia says were killed. It said those cases were also absent from the report’s statistics.

The Russian mission questioned the methodology used to select information for the report, arguing that UNESCO’s verified figures were far below the actual number of journalists killed. It urged UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Enany to condemn every killing of a journalist, review the methodology with member states and consider changes at the next IPDC session in 2028.

The mission said journalists killed in armed conflicts are civilians and called for their deaths to be properly recorded and condemned. It added that Russia would continue pressing for the cases it has reported to be included in UNESCO’s statistics.

UNESCO’s latest Report on the Safety of Journalists and the Danger of Impunity says 189 journalists were killed from the beginning of 2024 to late 2025, including 127 in conflict zones. The report says drone attacks caused 40 per cent of those deaths. It lists 62 deaths in Palestine, 17 in Mexico and 14 in Sudan. It records 12 journalists killed in Ukraine during the period.