Shutdown of Espresso, Pramyi and Channel 5: teams responded to Danilov's criticism and are ready to participate in  united Ukrainian marathon

Employees, journalists and editorial staff of Espresso, Pramyi and Channel 5 were very surprised by statement of Secretary of  National Security and Defense Council Alexei Danilov, which he made on a joint telethon that channels "decided to make their own show and can return to marathon."

This is not true. It is not right to be deceitful in  last days of Holy Week; Lying is a grave sin, which today also harms  all-Ukrainian unity that has surprised the world and is an important factor in Ukraine's victory.

Espresso, Pryamiy and Channel 5 TV channels have repeatedly appealed to National Security and Defense Council and  National Council on Television and Radio Broadcasting to join United  telethon.

From the first days of Russian invasion,  TV channels, on their own initiative and in good faith, abandoned traditional broadcasting network, reshaped air, and, in particular, broadcast a joint marathon.

On March 19, Free Media asked National Council, National Security and Defense Council, and Ministry of Culture and Information Policy to provide Channel 5 and Pramyi to a slot (part of  airtime) in national marathon and introduce them to  editorial team.

TV channels received confirmation from Minister of Culture and Information and Chairman of National Council on TV regarding allocation of time intervals from March 23. But this did not happen.

Instead, at night of April 4,  channels were excluded from digital broadcasting. We would like to emphasize that TV channels "Espresso", "Pramyi" and "Channel 5" have always defended the state, pro-Ukrainian and pro-European positions.

Channels broadcast such world-famous broadcasters as Radio Liberty, France 24,  BBC and Voice of America. No official has so far claimed responsibility for disconnecting TV channels from digital airwaves and has not explained legal grounds for this.

We regard statement of Secretary of National Security and Defense Council as an attempt to justify  "needs of wartime" illegal actions of officials that contradict  European aspirations of our state, principles of freedom of speech.

Even martial law does not justify actual political censorship they are trying to impose now by shutting down 3 TV channels.

We are ready to accept  proposal of Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, we expect authorities to provide time slots for marathon and involve creative teams and editors in the development of a joint TV product, and we are ready to spend much of our time running the marathon.

We are ready to do everything together to combat hybrid information threats of Russian Federation and work 24 hours a day, approaching  common victory of Ukraine in a war against Russians.