Southern Vermont audiences might have noticed increased Ukraine coverage this week in three local newspapers.
The Brattleboro Reformer now has a “Ukraine” tab, which frequently updates with footage of the Russian invasion. Two sister publications — the Bennington Banner, a daily, and the Manchester Journal, a weekly — along with the Reformer, also supply updates on what’s happening in Ukraine.
The three newspapers have ties to people in Ukraine through the publications’ owner, Paul Belogour of Guilford — who drew criticism in the days before Russia’s invasion into Ukraine for a column he wrote, titled “War is the answer.”
Belogour owns several Vermont businesses, including software development company Boston UniSoft Technologies, co-working space Vermont Innovation Box, Vermont Beer Makers and vermontmaplesyrup.com, which sells local syrup, sugar and candy.
Belogour, who grew up in Belarus, moved to Boston in the 1990s when he landed a rowing scholarship at Northeastern University.
Last May, Belogour told VTDigger his software company employed about 45 people in Ukraine.
Some of these Ukraine-based employees have been helping the Vermont publications with web and technical support since Belogour purchased the papers last year, said Jordan Brechenser, president and publisher of the papers’ parent company, Vermont News & Media.
Belogour, through Brechenser, declined to be interviewed, and as of Friday afternoon had not responded to a list of emailed questions.
In his column last week, which was published in the Brattleboro and Bennington newspapers, Belogour wrote that a war in Ukraine would boost the U.S. economy and force Europe to rely on the United States for aid.
“The U.S. rose to the status of superpower right after World War II when the rest of the developed world was in ruins, and the U.S. by default became the only bright spot,” Belogour wrote. “There is a chance that the war between Russia and Ukraine can help the U.S. to make this happen again.”
The Reformer has since published a handful of letters to the editor criticizing Belogour’s column, including one which described the column as “unfathomably sad.” The Banner, too, published a letter criticizing Belogour’s column.
“Some people felt that it was a pro-war approach, that it was not factoring in the human element of this,” Brechenser said, “And to Paul’s point, when I pressed him on it after, he said, ‘Well, this was not about that piece. It was purely about the economics of the war and who stands to benefit.’”
Belogour wrote the piece before Russia invaded, Brechenser said.
“I did get feedback on both sides,” Brechenser said of the column. “It’s a good thing. It creates dialogue.”
Meanwhile, as Russia amassed military forces near the Ukrainian border, Brechenser and Belogour checked in regularly with a small group of Belogour’s employees there, Brechenser said. These colleagues video-called them on Skype and emailed videos of the attack. Some videos they had taken, and some were aggregated from social media.
After discussing it with Belogour, they began publishing those clips on Monday, Brechenser said. He noted that Belogour is not usually involved in the publications’ editorial decisions.
The Ukraine-based employees are “sharing it with us because they kind of feel that they have an obligation to try to get this news outside of Ukraine,” Brechenser said.
Eugene Sidoronok, an information technologies executive for Boston UniSoft, told Vermont News & Media that he urged Russian people to “go to the streets, and stop the deaths of your loved ones.”
Vermont News & Media does not independently verify any of the Ukraine videos, Brechenser said. When he receives the clips, and a short description of their context, he has no way of knowing who took them or whether they came directly from his contacts in Ukraine or from social media.
“They’re very loyal, dedicated employees, so we take some of this just on sheer face value,” Brechenser said. Belogour has known these employees for almost 15 years, Brechenser said.
Vermont News & Media’s contacts — Sidoronok, Eugene Shcherbak, Ilya Petrov, Arsen Abovyan and Ivan Sonin, according to the Reformer — are not fighting, Brechenser said, but they’re aggregating and sharing logistical information, such as locations of supplies, with other people on the ground.
“Even now, under the threat of falling bombs, frequent trips to the shelters, making Molotov cocktails, donating blood, and with weapons at hand, they are still finding the time to continue with their work for my Vermont-based businesses,” Belogour told the Reformer earlier this week.
