Olga Rudenko is the chief editor of the Kyiv Independent, an award-winning media start-up launched in November 2021 by the former editorial team of the Kyiv Post. Olga is the former deputy chief editor of the Kyiv Post. She has written for global publications, and was a fellow at the Chicago Booth School of Business in 2021.

She was featured on the cover of Time magazine in May 2022 as one of the publication’s Next Generation Leaders, and won the Women of Europe award in the “Woman in Action” category in December 2022.

Olga Rudenko

Admin

Daryna Shevchenko is the CEO of the Kyiv Independent. Daryna has 10 years experience as a media manager, trainer and media consultant. After working at Kyiv Post, she became the executive director of Media Development
Foundation, ran the investigative journalism department at TV channel ZIK and worked as executive producer of award-winning investigative media Slidstvo.Info before joining Jnomics Media consultancy as Partner.

Daryna Shevchenko

Jakub Parusinski is the CFO of the Kyiv Independent. Jakub is a former CEO of Kyiv Post. He holds an MBA from INSEAD and spent 3 years at McKinsey’s London office, where he managed the EMEA hub for Advanced Analytics. Jakub works a media consultant and lecturer on media business at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga.

Jakub Parusinski

Zakhar is the chief operating officer at the Kyiv Independent. He is also a co-founder and managing Editor at The Fix Media, a media about the European publishing sector. Before joining the Kyiv Independent, Zakhar worked as a senior project lead at Jnomics, a UK-based media consultancy, where he worked with 15+ European publishers.

Zakhar Protsiuk

Toma Istomina is the deputy chief editor of the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked for the Kyiv Post from 2017-2021, first as a staff writer, later taking editor roles. For co-founding the Kyiv Independent, Toma was selected as one of the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe in 2022. She holds a master’s in international broadcasting from Taras Shevchenko University.

Toma Istomina

Oleksiy Sorokin is the political editor of the Kyiv Independent. Following a BA from the University of Toronto, Oleksiy became a political writer at the Kyiv Post. He broke stories on government and judiciary topics and investigated the former president and the current Prosecutor General.

Oleksiy Sorokin

Anna Yakutenko is the head of the video department at the Kyiv Independent. She started out as a print journalist at the Kyiv Post in 2015, and later switched to video format, launching a video department at the Kyiv Post in 2018. Anna has spent six months working with the newsrooms in the U.S. as a Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow. She holds a BA in journalism from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.

Anna Yakutenko

Editor

Anna Myroniuk is the head of investigations at the Kyiv Independent. Anna has run investigative projects on human rights, healthcare and illicit trade. She investigated presidents and oligarchs. She has written for New York Times, Washington Post, Coda Story and OCCRP. Anna holds a Masters in Investigative Journalism from the City University of London. She is a Chevening Scholar, a finalist of the 2020 Thomson Foundation Young Journalist Award, an honoree of the 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe Media & Marketing list, the runner-up in the investigative reporting category of the 2022 European Press Prize, and the finalist of the 2022 National Investigative Journalism Award of Ukraine.

Anna Myroniuk

Anastasiia Holovnenko is the Head of Communications at the Kyiv Independent. Initially, she worked as a PR and communications specialist for creative projects and cultural institutions in Ukraine. Before joining the Kyiv Independent, Anastasiia worked as chief marketing officer at Ukrainian digital media hromadske.

Anastasiia Holovnenko

Igor is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has previously covered conflict in the Middle East, investigated corruption in Ukraine and man-made environmental damage in Southeast Asia. He has a Master’s in Journalism from the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and was published in the Kyiv Post, USA Today, The Atlantic, Daily Beast and Foreign Policy.

Igor Kossov

Illia Ponomarenko is the defense and security reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has reported about the war in eastern Ukraine since the conflict’s earliest days. He covers national security issues, as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. Besides, he gets deployed to the war zone of Donbas with Ukrainian combat formations. He has also had deployments to Palestine and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an embedded reporter with UN peacekeeping forces. Illia won the Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to work as USA Today's guest reporter at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Illia Ponomarenko

Lili is a contributing editor at the Kyiv Independent. She joined the Kyiv Post in 2021 first as a staff writer covering business news and then as business editor. Lili is originally from Washington, D.C., but currently resides in New York where she is completing a master’s degree in Russian, Eastern European, and Eurasian affairs with a focus on Ukrainian studies at Columbia University. She is also currently interning with the Human Rights Watch European and Central Asia division. From 2017-2020 Lili served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine, after which she interned with the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center.

Lili Bivings

Yevheniia Motorevska leads the War Crimes Team of the Kyiv Independent. She has been working in investigative journalism for over eight years. She has previously served as the editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske and headed the video department of the investigative journalism agency Slidstvo.Info. Prior to the onset of the full-scale war, she had been investigating corruption and abuse of power within the judicial and law enforcement systems.

Yevheniia Motorevska

Danylo Mokryk is a reporter with the War Crimes Team of the Kyiv Independent. He has previously worked as an investigative journalist with Bihus.Info. His 2022 investigation into Russian acts of genocide in Ukraine won the “Honor of the Profession” Ukrainian journalism award. The same year, his investigation into deliberate killings of Ukrainian children by Russian soldiers was short-listed for the MezhyhiryaFest Investigative Journalism Award. Before the full-scale Russian invasion, he had won several awards and nominations for his investigations of corruption in Ukraine.

Danylo Mokryk

Olesia Bida is a reporter with the War Crimes Team of the Kyiv Independent. She used to work as a journalist at Hromadske, an independent Ukrainian media outlet, where she focused on topics of human rights violations, gender equality, and sensitive topics. Olesia got her Master’s degree in the School of Journalism at the Ukrainian Catholic University.

Olesya Bida

Teah Pelechaty is a contributing editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is also a co-editor of Belarus Weekly, the Kyiv Independent's weekly update on current affairs in Belarus. She is completing a master’s degree in Global Affairs with a specialization in Global Security and Digital Governance at the University of Toronto and Sciences Po. She was previously a junior policy analyst in national security at the Government of Canada and a research associate with the European Values Center for Security Policy and the Atlantic Council.

Teah Pelechaty

Oleg Sukhov is a political reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He is a former editor and reporter at the Moscow Times. He has a master's degree in history from the Moscow State University. He moved to Ukraine in 2014 due to the crackdown on independent media in Russia and covered war, corruption, reforms and law enforcement for the Kyiv Post.

Oleg Sukhov

Olena Goncharova is a development manager and Canadian correspondent for the Kyiv Independent. She first joined the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper, as a staff writer in January 2012 and became the newspaper’s Canadian correspondent in June 2018. She is based in Edmonton, Alberta. Olena has a master’s degree in publishing and editing from the Institute of Journalism in Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. Olena was a 2016 Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellow who worked for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for six months. The program is administered by the University of Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia.

Olena Goncharova

Natalia Datskevych is a business reporter at the Kyiv Independent. Before joining the team, she worked as business reporter for the Kyiv Post. She studied economic theory at Kyiv National Economic University and holds a Ph.D in economic science.

Natalia Datskevych

Alexander Query is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He is the former business editor at the Kyiv Post. He worked as a TV correspondent and an anchorman at UATV in Ukraine, and received a BA in modern literature from La Sorbonne, in Paris.

Alexander Query

Anastasiia Lapatina is a national reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked in the same role at the Kyiv Post and has focused on politics and human rights, publishing stories about Crimea, Donbas, and Ukrainians in conflict zones such as Afghanistan, Syria, and Gaza. She’s currently finishing a BA in International Relations at the University of British Columbia in Canada.

Anastasiia Lapatina

Daryna Antoniuk is a tech reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She worked in the same role at the Kyiv Post and has focused on Ukrainian startups, investment and the fintech market. Antoniuk previously was a tech reporter for Forbes Ukraine. Her work has also been published at Sifted and The Record. She graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv with BA in journalism and communications.

Daryna Antoniuk

Author

Artur Korniienko is a culture writer at the Kyiv Independent. He previously reported on Ukrainian literature, art, music, film and social issues for the Kyiv Post, including the controversial Babyn Yar memorial and other development projects opposed by the community. In 2021, he ran a podcast about Ukrainian migrant workers for RFE/RL on the Vaclav Havel Fellowship in Prague. With a Master's in Journalism from the Ukrainian Catholic University, Korniienko had also worked as a freelance journalist and a TV correspondent.

Artur Korniienko

Daria Shulzhenko is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She has been a lifestyle reporter at the Kyiv Post until November 2021. She graduated from Kyiv International University with a bachelor’s in linguistics, specializing in translation from English and German languages. She has previously worked as a freelance writer and researcher.

Daria Shulzhenko

Asami Terajima is a national reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a business reporter for the Kyiv Post focusing on international trade, infrastructure, investment and energy.

Asami Terajima

Thaisa Semenova is a national reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She worked as a staff writer for the Kyiv Post until November 2021.

Thaisa Semenova

Kostyantyn Chernichkin

Dinara Khalilova is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She has previously worked as a fixer and local producer for Sky News. Dinara holds a BA in journalism from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and a Master’s degree in media and communication from Bournemouth University in the UK.

Dinara Khalilova

Anastasiya Gordiychuk is a news reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She has previously worked as an associate business and labor editor at The Varsity, where she focused on business and finances. She holds a BA in journalism from the University of Toronto. Her work has also been published in Maclean’s, Global Summitry Project, and the Toronto Observer.

Anastasiya Gordiychuk

Brooke Manning

Alexander is a reporter at The Kyiv Independent. He has previously covered Ukrainian foreign policy, the Middle East and North Africa. He was published in the ZN.UA, The Washington Times, Atlantic Council.

Alexander Khrebet

Olena Makarenko is a Kyiv-based journalist and documentary filmmaker. Since November 2015, Olena has been covering the events in Ukraine for foreign audiences. She has authored two short documentaries: “The Court” (2018) about establishing the Anti-Corruption Court in Ukraine and “Life-Long City” about an activist in Kryvyi Rih.

Olena Makarenko

Francis Farrell is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He has worked as managing editor at the online media project Lossi 36, and as a freelance journalist and documentary photographer. He has previously worked in OSCE and Council of Europe field missions in Albania and Ukraine, and is an alumnus of Leiden University in The Hague and University College London.

Francis Farrell

Helen Yushchenko is a newsroom assistant at the Kyiv Independent. She has previously worked as a news writer and content manager at the ADASTRA analytical center, and as a freelance writer. She holds a BA in international relations and is completing her master’s degree in international communications from Taras Shevchenko University.

Helen Yushchenko

Iryna Matviyishyn is a video reporter at the Kyiv Independent. She previously worked as a freelance journalist with various international media. She was also an analyst, a video producer, and a project coordinator at UkraineWorld. Iryna studied journalism in Lviv and holds a master’s degree in human rights and democratization from the Global Campus of Human Rights in Europe.

Iryna Matviyishyn

Joseph Roche is a Social Media Manager and contributor at the Kyiv Independent. He is a former Middle East junior analyst at Oxford Analytica. He worked as a freelance journalist in Ukraine, and received a master in International History from The Graduate Institute in Geneva.

Joseph Roche

Kate Tsurkan is a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. She is a writer, editor, and translator. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine. Originally from the U.S., she resides in Chernivtsi, a city in the west of Ukraine.

Kate Tsurkan

Daria Voytenko is a Project Manager at the Kyiv Independent. She coordinates commercial and partnerships projects. Before joining the Kyiv Independent, Daria worked as Digital Marketing Manager in the IT industry. Daria is completing a BA in Publishing and Editing at Borys Grinchenko Kyiv University.

Daria Voytenko

Masha Kot is a Project Manager at the Kyiv Independent. Prior to joining the team, Masha worked as a producer at studio Family Production where she organized shoots for commercials, music videos, and feature films. Masha is based in Kyiv.

Masha Kot

Based in Paris, Theo Prouvost studies Political Science at Lille University. He created JTO.NEWS in 2019, a web media focusing on social, ecological, and political issues. He previously worked for different media focusing on international relations and immigration.

Theo Prouvost

Guest

<p>To deliver reliable news from Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent has brought together driven journalists, editors, photographers, videographers, managers and marketers.</p>



<p>We are a team of more than 30 people from six countries based in Kyiv. We all have different backgrounds but we are united by our shared belief in independent journalism.</p>

Team

Meet the Team