Andriy Yurievich Tsaplienko (born 12 October 1968) is a Ukrainian
journalist
A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalis ...
, presenter,
filmmaker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...
and writer.
Biography
Born in
Kharkiv
Kharkiv ( uk, wikt:Харків, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine.Kharkiv State Kotlyarevsky University of Arts
* 1995
Kalmar University
Linnaeus University (LNU) ( sv, Linnéuniversitetet) is a state university in the Swedish historical province (''landskap'') Småland, with two campuses located in Växjö and Kalmar respectively. Linnaeus University was established in 2010 b ...
Tsaplienko was the first, and sometimes only, Ukrainian journalist in many conflicts and hot spots. He has reported extensively and authoritatively on many of world's major news stories in recent years. He started his career in television in 1989 as a lighting specialist in his hometown television channel. Following this, he worked as a regional reporter for TV channel Orion.
In 1997 he moved to
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
and the following year he joined TV channel Inter. Since 1999 he has released several weekly projects ''N-kilometer'', ''In the firing line'', ''Special correspondent''.
In 2001 he filed exclusive reports for TV channel Inter from Afghanistan covering stories on different sides of the conflict including
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
fighters and Northern Alliance factions. As a war correspondent he covered many conflicts including wars in Macedonia, Iraq, Côte d'Ivoire, Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Ossetia, Kashmir, Liberia, Burundi, Colombia.
Since 2007 Tsaplienko has released several documentaries for Inter as a scriptwriter: ''Organs for export'', ''Euroslaves'', ''Dr. Heim. Human experimentation'', ''A true story of Major Whirlwind'', ''Dope. Champions' factory'', among others.
In 2010 Tsaplienko published his novel ''Equator. Black & White''. Victor Bout, a Russian national who was sentenced to 25 years in prison in April 2012 after being found guilty of conspiracy to kill US officials and delivering anti-aircraft missiles to a terrorist organisation, is believed to be the prototype of the protagonist of the novel.
In 2012 Tsaplienko's film ''Betrayed city'' was nominated to Taras Shevchenko National Award.
On 7 March 2014, during the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in Crimea, Tsaplienko was captured and tortured by armed pro-Russian activists after filming the siege and assault of a Ukrainian military base by Russian troops in Sevastopol. Tsaplienko was pursued allegedly by separatists' riot police officers who used their weapons during the pursuit. The next day, a list of injured journalists was mentioned in the statement of M-me Dunja Mijatović, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media: "A number of journalists have been threatened, assaulted, physically attacked and several members of the media have been severely injured while covering the events in Crimea. They include Argumenti nedeli-Krym (Stanislav Yurchenko),
Associated Press Television News
{{About, the global video news agency, TVRI television programme, Dunia Dalam Berita, the airlines of Ethiopia, Ethiopian Airlines, the Indonesian public television, TVRI
Associated Press Television News, also referred to as AP Video and often abbr ...
, BBC, CNN, Inter channel (Olena Mekhanik, Andriy Tsaplienko and two operators), Russkaya Planeta (Pavel Nikulin), STB (Oleksii Simakov, Oleksandr Albinskyi, Vyacheslav Skvorchevskyi, Igor Levenok), 5 channel (Anton Laktionov) and a number of freelancers, including Boryana Katsarova and Dimiter Kenarov. Journalists have also had their equipment confiscated by unidentified assailants."
This attack was depicted in the novel ''Crimea is ours''.
Since August 24, 2014, Tsaplienko works for the Ukrainian channels 1+1 and
Ukraine Today
Ukraine Today was a Ukraine-based private English language satellite television channel, then webcasting service. The channel, which was owned by the Ukrainian 1+1 group and headquartered in Kyiv, presented round-the-clock news bulletins aimed ...
covering the events in the Donbass War and also takes part in volunteer activities supporting Ukrainian soldiers. In September 2014 he published his second novel "The Empire of the four sides".
In 2018, Tsaplienko published his dystopian novel ''The Wall''.
In the evening of March 25, 2022 Tsaplienko was wounded during a shelling by Russian troops on a column of civilians in the Chernihiv region.
"It happened during the shelling of the humanitarian corridor to Chernihiv. There were many civilians and cars waiting for permission to cross into Chernihiv to pick up their relatives. After the drone recorded a crowd, 15 minutes later the shelling began. First they started firing from Smerch (heavy multiple rocket launcher), then from 122 mm caliber artillery, then a mortar was connected, and at the final stage it was a tank. All this lasted at least an hour and a half," Andriy Tsaplienko said.
"Macedonia: The Conflict and The Media" 2003, Skopje, Macedonia, co-author, chapter "War and peace?".
Novel "Equator. Black & White" "Folio Publishers", 2010, Kharkiv.
* "P.O.W. People of war", essays and stories, "Folio Publishers", 2011, Kharkiv
* "The Four Sides Empire", novel, "Folio Publishers", 2014, Kharkiv
* "The book of changes", essays and stories, "Bookclub Publishers", 2015, Kharkiv (translated to Lithuanian by "Briedis Publishers" as "Permainų knyga" in 2018)
* "The Wall", a dystopian novel, "Bright Books Publishers", 2018, Kyiv, "Old Lion Publishers", 2018, Lviv
Publications
* "Leben in der heissen Zone", 1999, "Ost in West", Germany
* "Geliebte Holle", 1999, "Ost in West", Germany