PBS NEWSHOUR Provides Extensive Coverage from Ukraine with On-the-Ground Reporting
ZELENSKYY: THE MAN WHO TOOK ON PUTIN, New Documentary Profile of the Ukrainian President Premieres Friday, March 18
Additional Programs Related to the Crisis in Ukraine Include FRONTLINE: Putin’s Road to War, an Encore of FRONTLINE: Putin’s Way, and Programs from AMERICAN EXPERIENCE and POV
ARLINGTON, VA; March 16, 2022 – PBS is providing viewers with a range of news and documentary programming that delivers in-depth reporting and historical background to the situation unfolding in Ukraine.
PBS NewsHour’s extensive coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will continue in the coming days and weeks. A small NewsHour team is currently reporting from Ukraine including special correspondent Jane Ferguson, following previous in-country reporting by foreign affairs and defense correspondent Nick Schifrin. NewsHour’s nightly coverage will continue on broadcast as will its up-to-the-minute reporting across its digital and social platforms. PBS Newshour will also continue to commission reporting from Moscow by Ryan Chilcote and from Poland by Malcolm Brabant. Earlier this month, it presented an hour long special on the invasion of Ukraine in the lead up to its State of the Union special broadcast.
PBS announces today that ZELENSKYY: THE MAN WHO TOOK ON PUTIN, a new documentary profile of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will premiere as part of special programming on the crisis in Ukraine. The film follows Zelenskyy’s improbable rise from actor and stand-up comedian to political outsider, his unlikely but successful bid for the presidency, and his new role as the wartime leader of a nation under siege. The film also explores Zelenskyy’s game-changing use of social media and television, which has captivated the world as it watches the defiant response of a country and its president. What motivates Zelenskyy? And how did he transform from TV personality to become a major figure on the international stage? Executive produced for ITN Productions by George Waldrum and Ian Rumsey, the film premieres on Friday, March 18, 10:30-11:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS Video app.
FRONTLINE: Putin’s Road to War, is currently streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app. The film tells the story of what led to Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. Veteran filmmaker Michael Kirk and his team examine the events that shaped the Russian leader, the grievances that drive him and how a growing conflict with the West exploded into war in Europe.
FRONTLINE: Putin’s Way is also streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app. The program explores the allegations of criminality and corruption that have accompanied Putin’s reign in Russia. For over two decades, Putin accumulated the wealth and power that led to his autocratic rule and the specter of a new Cold War.
AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: The Great Famine will have an encore broadcast on Saturday, April 2, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) and will be available for streaming on PBS.org and the PBS Video app. When a devastating famine descended on Soviet Russia in 1921, it was the worst natural disaster in Europe since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. Half a world away, Americans responded with a massive two-year relief campaign, championed by a new secretary of commerce, “the Great Humanitarian” Herbert Hoover. The nearly 300 American relief workers, “Hoover’s boys,” would be tested by a railroad system in disarray, a forbidding climate and— being among the first group of outsiders to break through Russia’s isolation following the Bolshevik Revolution—a ruthless government suspicious of their motives. By the summer of 1922, Americans were feeding nearly 11-million Soviet citizens a day in 19,000 kitchens. The Great Famine tells this riveting story of America’s engagement with a distant and desperate people—an operation hailed for its efficiency, grit and generosity—within the larger story of the Russian Revolution and the roots of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry that continues to this day.
Also available for streaming is POV: The Distant Barking of Dogs, which follows the life of 10-year-old Ukrainian boy Oleg over a year, witnessing the gradual erosion of his innocence beneath the pressures of the ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine. Having no other place to go, Oleg and his grandmother Alexandra stay and watch as others leave the village, showing just how crucial—and fragile—family is for survival.
The streaming programs are available on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS Video app, available on iOS, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO.
PBS LearningMedia is also offering classroom resources about the unfolding events in Ukraine. WVIZ/Ideastream’s NewsDepth program and KET’s News Quiz both have weekly news segments with timely updates for students in late elementary and middle school. PBS NewsHour Classroom has also added a segment on the Ukrainian refugee crisis to the site, accompanied by classroom discussion questions for middle and high school students, and teachers can visit the PBS NewsHour Classroom collection to search for news segments covering the ongoing conflict in the region, including these segments from newscasts between December 2013 and March 2014.
For additional context on the history of the region designed for classroom use, theseoral history interviews and the accompanying lesson plan from the NETA-distributed documentary, Baba Babee Skazala: Grandmother Told Grandmother, provide students with the opportunity to understand the history of Ukraine since World War II.
PBS will continue to explore other timely program offerings as events in Ukraine develop.
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