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Daria Shulzhenko

Reporter

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.

Articles

A Ukrainian soldier who was previously held captive in an unspecified location in Ukraine, on June 6, 2024.

Years of torture, abuse in Russian captivity take shocking toll on Ukrainian POWs

by Daria Shulzhenko
Editor’s Note: This article was selected through a vote by members of the Kyiv Independent’s community. Become our member today and join our exclusive members-only Discord channel, where you can discuss and suggest stories, ask our journalists questions, and more. This article contains graphic descriptions. In almost two years of Russian captivity, former Ukrainian marine Vladyslav Zadorin lost 60 kilograms — half his body weight — along with his gallbladder and nearly his toes. He returned ho

How Russia targets, detains and kills Ukrainian officials in occupied regions

by Daria Shulzhenko
For Volodymyr Mykolaienko, the former mayor of Kherson, this year’s Independence Day became a second birthday — he regained his freedom after over three years in Russian captivity on Aug. 24. “For the past few years, I haven’t seen anything but bars and concrete walls,” Mykolaienko told journalists upon his release. “I always wondered what my second birthday would be like, and it turned out beautifully that it fell on Aug. 24.” Shortly after the full-scale invasion began in 2022, 65-year-old
Ukrainian soldiers in Kherson, Ukraine, on Aug. 8, 2025.

Trump doesn't have enough leverage to stop Russia, Ukrainian soldiers say ahead of Alaska talks

by Daria Shulzhenko
Editor’s Note: Some of the service members interviewed for this story are introduced by callsign or first name only due to security reasons. As U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin prepare for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, Ukrainian soldiers remain skeptical the meeting will yield any productive outcome, noting that Russian forces have ramped up their offensive on the ground. "I believe these negotiations will lead nowhere," Artem Fysun, a soldier with t

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

'You think the end has come' — as Russian attacks on Ukraine escalate, Kyiv grapples with terrifying new normal

In the early hours of July 10, many Kyiv residents were jolted awake by the thundering sound of ballistic missiles shaking their buildings. Others were already lying awake in beds, bathtubs, and underground shelters across the city, as residents endure a new normal of intensified Russian strikes on the capital. "You lie down, look into the abyss of night, and hear the loudest attack," Hryhorii Matsebok, a 47-year-old artist, told the Kyiv Independent. "And you think the end has already come."
 Explosives Service of Ukraine carry out demining works in Kharkiv Oblast, Ukraine, on Oct. 24, 2023.

'Ukraine is biggest landmine challenge since World War II,' says head of world’s largest demining organization

by Daria Shulzhenko
Russia's full-scale invasion may have turned Ukraine into the world's largest minefield. As of March 2025, Ukraine’s mine-affected land spans an estimated 139,000 square kilometers — or 23% of its territory — covering more ground than all of Greece and posing an immense threat to civilian life and recovery efforts. Clearing landmines and unexploded ordnance is essential to preventing civilian casualties and enabling the safe use of land and infrastructure, fostering the country's recovery and

Operation Spiderweb and Russia’s record drone assault – Ukraine in photos, June 2025

For Ukraine, June began with a celebration — not the one the whole country longs for, victory over Moscow — but a celebration of one of the most stunning drone attacks on Russia, known as Operation Spiderweb. On June 1, Ukrainian drones targeted four Russian air bases – two of them thousands of miles inside the country – hitting the heavy bombers stationed there. According to estimates from Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), the drone strike disabled 34% of Russia’s cruise missile bombers, causi
Ukrainian POWs leave a bus in the Chernihiv Oblast after a prisoner exchange on May 23, 2025

Explained: How Ukraine negotiates prisoner of war swaps with Russia

by Daria Shulzhenko
Even after Ukraine cut diplomatic ties with Russia in 2022, prisoner exchanges have continued as one of the few remaining channels of communication between the two countries. Negotiated behind closed doors and carried out irregularly, POW swaps — and the decisions surrounding them — have long been shrouded in secrecy. Controversies have repeatedly erupted in Ukraine over whether Kyiv is doing enough to bring back its people and which POWs it prioritizes. Since the start of the full-scale invas