How we got here: 5 years of the Kyiv Independent
The Kyiv Independent team, wearing vyshyvankas (Ukrainian traditional embroidered shirts), poses for a group photo in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 21, 2026. (Bogdana Ferguson / The Kyiv Independent)
on GoogleFive years ago today, a group of journalists in Kyiv was fired for standing up to their newspaper's owner. He wanted to take control of editorial decisions and end their critical coverage of Ukrainian authorities.
These journalists faced a choice — to accept it quietly or attempt to start something completely new. Driven by the belief that Ukraine needed a truly independent voice in English, they dared to launch the Kyiv Independent.
“This was a perfect moment to sigh, tuck our tails and walk away, lesson learned,” says Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief and one of the founding members of the Kyiv Independent.
“Thankfully, we were stubborn, and thought: Why not, instead, we teach them a lesson?”
Three months later, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and the team's uncompromising reporting quickly made the Kyiv Independent a news source for millions around the world.
This November, the Kyiv Independent, now Ukraine's leading English-language media outlet, turns five.
What began as a small group of journalists in a coworking space in Kyiv and a single newsletter, "Ukraine Daily," is now an organization of around 100 people producing breaking news, investigations, documentaries, video reports, and newsletters — plus a merchandise store that shares Ukrainian culture with the world. Its website reaches millions of readers, while its YouTube channel has nearly 500,000 subscribers.
More than 38,000 members across over 100 countries now support the publication, providing about 70% of its revenue and helping keep its journalism accessible without a paywall.
How the Kyiv Independent was founded: a fight for freedom of speech
The Kyiv Independent was founded by journalists who were fired from the Kyiv Post, Ukraine's oldest English-language newspaper.
Determined to continue reporting with total editorial independence, the team established a new publication, with Daryna Shevchenko as CEO and Rudenko as editor-in-chief.
Starting the company was "terrifying," Shevchenko remembers. "We knew what we had to do, but we also knew our chances were slim at best, and so did everyone around us.
"We worked around the clock to launch in just a few weeks. The odds were against us, but we believed in a free press, in each other, and in our readers. That belief took us further than we ever imagined."
Starting from scratch meant building a website, attracting an audience, and finding a sustainable funding model while continuing to cover the news.
First came "Ukraine Daily," a newsletter covering the country's most important developments for international readers. It remains one of the Kyiv Independent's flagship newsletters today, reaching tens of thousands of readers every day.
From the beginning, the team sought to avoid dependence on a single owner. So they turned to their readers, launching a Patreon page that attracted more than 500 supporters in its first week.
Just three months after the Kyiv Independent was launched, Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The team stayed in Ukraine and kept reporting, despite the danger.
The team had to adapt quickly to its new role as a wartime newsroom. Throughout 2022, the Kyiv Independent covered every major event: when Russia launched its full-scale invasion, when the Bucha massacre was discovered, the successful counteroffensive in Kharkiv, and the liberation of Kherson.
Rudenko highlights how steep the learning curve was. “We had to learn how to report from the front lines of the war where the 'Press' vest makes you a desirable target for Russians,” she says.
The invasion changed nearly every aspect of the newsroom's work. Journalists were reporting on the destruction of their own cities, while suddenly reaching a much larger international audience looking for reliable information about the war.
“Covering a war against your own country as a journalist is an experience unlike any other,” says Toma Istomina, deputy chief editor and a co-founder. “Members of our team have had to report on brutal Russian attacks on cities where their families live, do their jobs while sheltering from strikes themselves, and watch this horror unfold in the places dearest to them.”
“This war is deeply personal for all of us, but I believe we’ve managed to uphold our professional standards throughout — and that has earned us our audience’s trust.”
Support from readers quickly became essential. In the first days following the invasion, over 4,300 new patrons joined the Kyiv Independent's Patreon community, while more than $2 million was raised on GoFundMe by April 2022 to support reporting.
Becoming a bridge between Ukraine and the world
Over the years, the Kyiv Independent expanded its reporting beyond breaking news, into investigations, video journalism, and newsletters, including "Belarus Weekly," "War Notes," and "WTF is Wrong With Russia."
In March 2023, the newsroom established its War Crimes Investigations Unit to document and investigate crimes committed by Russian forces. The unit has since produced 15 documentaries, gathering evidence and telling the stories of victims and survivors.
Video journalism became another important area of our work. We publish front-line reports, documentaries, interviews, and investigations on our YouTube channel, which now has nearly 500,000 subscribers.
Over the years, we published investigations that uncovered misconduct within the Ukrainian military, examined Russian disinformation campaigns, and continued scrutinizing political developments within Ukraine itself.
This work reflected one of the principles on which the Kyiv Independent had been founded: maintaining editorial independence, including when reporting on difficult or controversial subjects.
“We learned to do it all amid blackouts, water shortages, and no heat,” says Rudenko.
“We learned to continue to do it all with burnout and accumulated trauma that’s testing our mental health. And lately, we had to learn to do it through Russian cyberattacks that try to take us down.”
Since 2022, we’ve received multiple awards for our work, including the Special Award from the European Press Prize (2023), Future of Media Award (2023), the INMA Global Media Award for best new video product for the War Crimes Investigation Unit (2024), and the Politiken Freedom Award (2026).
In May 2022, TIME magazine named our editor-in-chief Olga Rudenko a "Next Generation Leader" and featured her on the cover of its international edition.
Building an international community
Reader support has been central to the Kyiv Independent since its founding. What began with 500 Patreon supporters grew rapidly following Russia's full-scale invasion, reaching 10,000 by January 2023.
In May 2023, the team launched its own membership program, allowing readers to support the newsroom directly while receiving additional benefits and opportunities to engage with its work.
Today, the community includes more than 38,000 members across over 100 countries, including over 10,000 in the United States, 4,000 in the United Kingdom, and more than 1,000 each in Sweden and Germany.
Most members contribute around $5 a month. Together, readers provide about 70% of the Kyiv Independent's revenue, allowing the newsroom to maintain its editorial independence while keeping its reporting free for millions of people worldwide.
Helping the world help Ukraine
Since its earliest days, the Kyiv Independent has received questions from international readers about how they can support Ukraine. In December 2021, the newsroom launched "12 Days of Giving," highlighting a different Ukrainian charity each day.
In June 2025, the Kyiv Independent launched "How to Help Ukraine," a monthly members-only newsletter featuring trusted Ukrainian charities. In its first six months, the newsletter helped raise more than $105,300. In August 2026, it helped raise $12,500 for Come Back Alive in a single issue.
Merchandise has also become an important fundraising channel. The Kyiv Independent's first collaboration with Saint Javelin in 2022 raised $20,000 for the Hospitallers volunteer paramedics. Since opening its own store in 2024, the publication has continued supporting Ukrainian causes through charity collections, including $24,500 raised for Veteran Hub in 2025 and enough funds to purchase 26 drone detectors for regional journalists working near the front line in 2026.
The Kyiv Independent’s community has also supported Ukrainian media. Following the U.S. aid freeze in January 2025, the Kyiv Independent's Save Ukrainian Media campaign raised more than $66,200 for independent local newsrooms.
In March 2026, our first campaign on our own crowdfunding page raised $63,500 in 141 hours for a prosthetic knee for injured photojournalist George Ivanchenko. The money came from 1,465 donors, 71% of whom were members.
“Being a leader is about being there when others need you, especially when times are dark and the future looks grim,” says Shevchenko.
“Everyone on our team shares that belief. We grew stronger because people stood with us, and now it’s our turn to stand with others and work together for real social change.”
Five years on, you can help us write the next chapter
Five years after its founding, the Kyiv Independent has grown from a handful of journalists in a Kyiv coworking space into an organization of around 100 people, including reporters, editors, investigative journalists, video creators, and other professionals.
Much has changed along the way, but the most important things have not. The newsroom still reports from Kyiv, bringing the truth from the ground, and still answers to our readers: the people who make our work possible.
Every one of the last five years was made possible by our members, and the years to come will be too.
The Kyiv Independent now has a goal of welcoming 5,000 new members. If achieved, the newsroom will make five promises for the coming year:
- We will keep the Kyiv Independent free to read, with no paywall, for as long as Russia’s full-scale war continues.
- We will create a permanent, regularly updated guide to trusted Ukrainian charities, so anyone who asks us how to help Ukraine gets a real answer.
- We will launch an educational series on Ukrainian history, because Ukraine is more than the war it is fighting.
- We will make our “Explaining Ukraine” series free for any newsroom in the world to republish and translate, in any language, because we want more people, in more places, to understand Ukraine and the people who live here.
- We will celebrate those who stand with Ukraine. We will start a Kyiv Independent award for true champions of Ukraine.
Five years ago, we set out to build an independent newsroom that would tell Ukraine's story to the world.
We couldn't have imagined everything that would follow — the stories we'd cover, the challenges we'd face, or the community that would grow around us.
Today, thousands of people around the world make our journalism possible. And because of them, millions more can read our reporting for free.
Our first five years have been extraordinary. But Ukraine's story is far from over.
Help us write the next chapter. Become a member of the Kyiv Independent.
