Simon Ostrovsky (russian: Симо́н Остро́вский; born ) is an American documentary filmmaker and journalist. Best-known for his coverage of the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatist forces in Donbas, Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since Feb ...

for ''VICE News'', he reported extensively on events that unfolded in

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

in 2014, as the country's rising political tensions with

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

culminated in the Russian annexation of Crimea and the outbreak of the

war in Donbas War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

. In April 2014, Ostrovsky was kidnapped by pro-Russia separatists after they identified him as a person of interest at a checkpoint in the Ukrainian city of

Sloviansk Sloviansk ( uk, Слов'янськ, Sloviansk ; russian: Славянск, Slavyansk or ; prior to 1784 – Tor) is a city in the Kramatorsk district of the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the administrative center of the Slovyansk urban commun ...

; he was held hostage and tortured for three days before being released as separatist forces retreated in the face of a Ukrainian military counteroffensive around the city. Later, in 2015, he filmed ''Selfie Soldiers'', a documentary in which he followed the social media presence of a Russian soldier who had been deployed to Donbas, Ukraine, at a time when Russia denied having any military presence in the country's mainland. He won an

Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

in 2013 for his work with

VICE Media Vice Media Group LLC is an American-Canadian digital media and broadcasting company. , the Vice Media Group included five main business areas: VICE.com (digital content); VICE STUDIOS (film and TV production) VICE TV (also known as VICELAND); V ...

, and his series ''Russian Roulette'' was nominated for two Emmys. Ostrovsky, who is currently a special correspondent for ''

PBS NewsHour ''PBS NewsHour'' is an American evening television news program broadcast on over 350 PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virg ...

'', is also a recipient of the

Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award The Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award honors excellence in broadcast and digital journalism in the public service and is considered one of the most prestigious awards in journalism. The awards were established in 1942 and administered ...

Career

Ostrovsky started his career in documentary filmmaking in 2007 after spending six years as a print reporter in Russia, where he covered

for ''

The Moscow Times ''The Moscow Times'' is an independent English-language and Russian-language online newspaper. It was in print in Russia from 1992 until 2017 and was distributed free of charge at places frequented by English-speaking tourists and expatriates s ...

'' and then

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to the ...

Armenia Armenia (), , group=pron officially the Republic of Armenia,, is a landlocked country in the Armenian Highlands of Western Asia.The UNbr>classification of world regions places Armenia in Western Asia; the CIA World Factbook , , and ''Ox ...

and

Azerbaijan Azerbaijan (, ; az, Azərbaycan ), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, , also sometimes officially called the Azerbaijan Republic is a transcontinental country located at the boundary of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of th ...

for the French news agency

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

. In 2007, Ostrovsky produced an exclusive report for

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also availa ...

'' investigating government-sponsored child labor in the cotton industry of

Uzbekistan Uzbekistan (, ; uz, Ozbekiston, italic=yes / , ; russian: Узбекистан), officially the Republic of Uzbekistan ( uz, Ozbekiston Respublikasi, italic=yes / ; russian: Республика Узбекистан), is a doubly landlocked cou ...

, which a US embassy cable published by Wikileaks credited with reigniting the global campaign against Uzbek cotton. Ostrovsky traced the supply chains of multinational garment retailers like

Topshop TOPSHOP (originally Top Shop) is a British fashion brand for women's clothing, shoes and accessories. It was part of the Arcadia Group, controlled by Sir Philip Green, but went into administration in late 2020 before being purchased by ASOS (r ...

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

and H&M to Uzbekistan, leading many Western cotton buyers to eventually boycott the country. In 2009, Ostrovsky exposed the use of North Koreans in work camps in Russia for BBC ''Newsnight'', and linked their operations to the Russian Timber Group, a company owned and operated by the wealthy British Hambro family, which was paying the North Korean regime to use its workers in Russia. He revisited those camps with VICE Media founder Shane Smith in 2011, and co-produced a separate report for VICE's documentary news series on HBO about the escape of defectors from North Korea in 2013. Ostrovsky has reported extensively on the

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...

n practice of sending workers abroad. In a report for the UK's ''

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

'' newspaper he described how a "North Korean labour force tens-of-thousands strong, put in place across Asia," helped finance the regime in Pyongyang through contracts with Western firms. In 2013, VICE Media hired Ostrovsky as a producer for the second season of ''

VICE A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tra ...

'' on HBO, where he helped the program earn an Emmy as an "Outstanding Informational Series." In early 2014, he helped launch the company's new current affairs division, VICE News, with his investigation into allegations of corruption at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi and coverage of the 2014 crisis in Ukraine. His series of unvarnished video dispatches from Ukraine titled "Russian Roulette" won VICE News widespread acclaim and recognition as a burgeoning player on the media landscape. The series was nominated for two Emmys, won two

Webby Award The Webby Awards are awards for excellence on the Internet presented annually by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, a judging body composed of over two thousand industry experts and technology innovators. Categories include ...

s in 2015, the

AIB Media Excellence Awards The AIB International Media Excellence Awards - the AIBs - were created in 2005 by the Association for International Broadcasting. The AIBs recognise excellence in the international broadcasting industry and attract entries from broadcasters all o ...

and the

Lovie Awards The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences or IADAS is an international organization founded in 1998 in New York City to help drive the creative, technical, and professional progress of the Internet and evolving forms of interactive and ...

. In 2017 CNN hired Ostrovsky to its expanded investigations unit which also includes veteran investigative journalist

Carl Bernstein Carl Milton Bernstein ( ; born February 14, 1944) is an American investigative journalist and author. While a young reporter for ''The Washington Post'' in 1972, Bernstein was teamed up with Bob Woodward, and the two did much of the original new ...

. In 2018, Ostrovsky joined media start-up

Coda Media Coda Media is a New York-based online crisis reporting news platform, headed by Natalia Antelava, a former BBC correspondent, and Ilan Greenberg, a magazine and newspaper writer who served as a staff reporter for ''The Wall Street Journal''. Pet ...

as Investigations Editor and began contributing to

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

Newshour ''Newshour'' is BBC World Service's flagship international news and current affairs radio programme, which is broadcast twice daily: weekdays at 1400, weekends at 1300 and nightly at 2100 (UK time). Each edition lasts one hour. It consists of ...

2014 kidnapping by pro-Russia militants in Ukraine

On April 21, 2014, while producing "Russian Roulette," a series of reports for ''

Vice News Vice News (stylized as VICE News) is Vice Media's current affairs channel, producing daily documentary essays and video through its website and YouTube channel. It promotes itself on its coverage of "under-reported stories". Vice News was create ...

'' in eastern Ukraine, Ostrovsky's vehicle was stopped at a separatist checkpoint in the city of

. One of the rebels identified Ostrovsky as a

person of interest "Person of interest" is a term used by law enforcement in the United States, Canada, and other countries when identifying someone possibly involved in a criminal investigation who has not been arrested or formally accused of a crime. It has no leg ...

through a printed image, before taking him captive under the militia of the separatist pro-Russian leader, Vyacheslav Ponomarev, who later said he was holding Ostrovsky for a potential trade. "We need prisoners. We need a bargaining chip," Ponomarev was quoted as telling ''The Moscow Times''. Ostrovsky was imprisoned for three days, during which he was held in a basement, beaten and interrogated. Ostrovsky described the ordeal as "the worst three days of my life" in an account he authored for Canada's ''

Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'' newspaper. In the article, Ostrovsky wrote: "A hat was pulled over my head and taped over my eyes. My arms were pulled tightly behind my back and taped together too. I was led down a set of stairs and thrown into an empty, damp room … I was punched and kicked in the ribs and fell over to the ground." Immediately prior to his detention, Ostrovsky had been investigating Russian citizens' involvement in the pro-Russia armed groups of eastern Ukraine, something separatist forces were trying to hide at that early stage of the conflict, according to a video deposition he made for VICE News following his release. He had also attended several press conferences of Ponomarev where the rebel leader had threatened journalists. By April 24, Ostrovsky's detention had garnered considerable global media attention. The security situation around Sloviansk had begun to deteriorate, as

Ukrainian forces , imports = , exports = , history = , ranks = Military ranks of Ukraine , country=Ukraine The Armed Forces of Ukraine ( uk, Збро́йні си́ли Украї́ни), most commonly know ...

reached the outskirts of the city and began engaging separatist units with

armoured vehicles Military vehicles are commonly armoured (or armored; see spelling differences) to withstand the impact of shrapnel, bullets, shells, rockets, and missiles, protecting the personnel inside from enemy fire. Such vehicles include armoured fighting ...

. By approximately 6:00 PM, Ostrovsky was released by his captors. Approximately "five minutes" after his release, he ran into a Canadian media crew, who helped him flee the city after conducting a quick interview. Later that day however, Ponomarev falsely or unknowingly told media that Ostrovsky was still being held.

''Selfie Soldiers'' (2015)

''Selfie Soldiers: Russia Checks in to Ukraine'' is a 2015 video investigation into the Russian military's presence in Ukraine, reported and produced by Ostrovsky. The documentary follows the steps of a careless Russian army soldier as he travels from Russia to the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, using selfies and other photographs the soldier has himself posted online. ''Selfie Soldiers'' departs from other such investigations into soldiers' social media posts when Ostrovsky re-enacts the photos himself to establish clearly that he has personally visited the locations where they were taken inside Ukraine and Russia. The film was awarded the prestigious

for its "innovative reporting" and an

American Society of Magazine Editors The American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) is an industry trade group for magazine journalists and editors of magazines published in the United States. ASME includes the editorial leaders of most major consumer magazine in print and digital ex ...

Award for "outstanding use of video" in 2016.

Awards

;2016 DuPont Columbia University Award for Journalism, ASME award (Ellie) - Video Award, Livingston Award - Finalist, Cine Golden Eagle finalist - Nonfiction content / Short – Documentary, Webby Honoree - Online Film & Video, News & Politics ;2015 Emmy nomination - Outstanding Video Journalism, Emmy nomination - Outstanding Coverage of a Breaking News Story, Webby Award - News & Politics: Series, Webby Award - News & Politics: Individual episode, AIB Award - Short News Report, Lovie Award - Best Web Personality/Host, Livingston Award - Finalist ;2014 IDA Documentary Awards – nomination ;2013 Emmy - Outstanding Informational Series ;2008 Banff World Television Awards - Nomination, One World Media Award - Nomination

References

External links