Team
Alisa Yurchenko
Investigative ReporterAlisa has been working as an investigative journalist and editor in Ukraine for over 10 years. She joined the Kyiv Independent in 2024. Before that Alisa worked at the anti-corruption investigative project Bihus.Info as editor, journalist and presenter. She is the winner of a number of Ukrainian investigative journalism prizes. Additionally, Alisa works as a media trainer. She created several courses, helping journalists and civil activists to find information using open-source intelligence.
Articles
Analysis: Ahead of Trump's 'major' Russia announcement, what will happen next to Ukraine?
Amid ever-escalating aerial assaults, accelerating Russian advances in the east, and the weariness that comes with nearly 3.5 years of war, all eyes in Ukraine are once again focused upon one man — U.S. President Donald Trump.
"I think I'll have a major statement to make on Russia on Monday," Trump said in an interview with NBC News on July 10, the latest development in a tortuously long and so far wholly ineffective U.S.-led peace process.
Short of a massive injection of military aid, or crus
Investigation: How Russia prepares its strategic missile plant for ‘eternal war’
Key findings:
* Despite international sanctions, Russia's strategic missile plant was able to import complex machinery to dramatically increase missile production.
* The Kyiv Independent has identified the equipment supplied to the plant, as well as the supply chains, mostly from China.
* We located the plant's new premises, built to house the new machinery.
* We obtained a document confirming that the plant received an order to produce intercontinental missiles capable of reaching the U.S.
Investigation: The hidden journey of Ukrainian coal stolen by Russia — and who profits from it
On March 29, the sanctioned Russia-flagged vessel Sv. Nikolay quietly docked at the Algerian port of Annaba near the coal terminal, waiting to be unloaded.
The metallurgical coke the ship was carrying — a key ingredient in steelmaking produced from coal — had been stolen.
The Kyiv Independent traced the vessel’s covert journey to this point — and found strong evidence that the vessel departed from the occupied Ukrainian port of Mariupol. While in Mariupol, it kept its transponder off to disgui
We tried to buy US chips as a Russian company. Here's what happened
The Kyiv Independent's Alisa Yurchenko went undercover as a representative of a Russian defense manufacturer to try buying American chips through Russian suppliers. Our investigation reveals how China helps Russia obtain the Western weapon components through gray import schemes.
Investigation: We tried to buy American chips as a Russian defense manufacturer — and it worked
Despite bans put in place by the U.S. and Europe on the supply of electronic components to Russia, dozens of Russian microelectronics suppliers continue to obtain and resell imported chips to Russian arms manufacturers successfully.
Without these Western chips, Russia would not be able to produce key weapons — like missiles, drones, and self-propelled howitzers.
To prove that this line of supply continues to operate three years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, the Kyiv Independent tried orde
How Russia profits from arms exports despite sanctions
The Kyiv Independent analyzed leaked emails of a Russian defense company revealing Russia’s arms trade after the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The letters confirm that Russia continued to fulfill a huge contract signed shortly before the attack on Ukraine to supply its air defense systems and missiles to Saudi Arabia.
Investigation: Russia profits from arms exports to Saudi Arabia despite sanctions, leaks reveal
Few agreements are shrouded in more secrecy than inter-government arms deals — especially when one of the parties is a global pariah leading a bloody war.
But a recent massive leak of emails and documents has given us an unprecedented glimpse into a particularly secretive transaction.
The leak reveals that Saudi Arabia agreed to pay Russia over 2 billion euros under a contract signed in 2021 involving companies that were repeatedly sanctioned, both before and after Russia’s full-scale invasion
Investigation: Who helped Russians increase production of domestic attack drones despite sanctions
An American-made HIMARS artillery system races down a Ukrainian road as a kamikaze drone hunts it down. The drone flies into the vehicle, followed by an explosion. The scene was caught on video by a Russian reconnaissance drone in mid-November.
The drone that hit the HIMARS was a Lancet — one of Russia’s most used unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Russia has used thousands of them against Ukraine.
The weapons are produced by Zala Aero Group, a privately-owned group of Russian companies, with the
Investigation: Shattering secrecy of Putin’s top spy chief
The Kyiv Independent fills in the gaps in the story of Sergey Korolev, Vladimir Putin’s second-main spy chief, stripping him of a significant portion of his long-lived anonymity.
Investigation: Shattering the secrecy of Putin’s top spy chief
Key findings:
* International sanctions lists contain mistakes in key identifying data of Sergey Korolev, deputy head of Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
* The European Union and Swiss sanctions list the incorrect date of birth of Korolev. Almost all other sanctions lists don’t include the most likely spelling of his name or surname.
* The appearance of Korolev has been a secret. For years, the media and even some official sources have used a photo of a different Russian man to repres
