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Francis Farrell photo

Francis Farrell

Reporter

Francis Farrell is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent. He is the co-author of War Notes, the Kyiv Independent's weekly newsletter about the war. For the second year in a row, the Kyiv Independent received a grant from the Charles Douglas-Home Memorial Trust to support his front-line reporting for the year 2025-2026. Francis won the Prix Bayeux Calvados-Normandy for war correspondents in the young reporter category in 2023, and was nominated for the European Press Prize in 2024. Francis speaks Ukrainian and Hungarian and is an alumnus of Leiden University in The Hague and University College London. He has previously worked as a managing editor at the online media project Lossi 36, as a freelance journalist and documentary photographer, and at the OSCE and Council of Europe field missions in Albania and Ukraine.

For media & speaking inquiries:
press@kyivindependent.com

Articles

Counterattacking through the kill zone, Ukrainian troops brace for new Russian offensives

by Francis Farrell
Editor’s Note: In accordance with the security protocols of the Ukrainian military, soldiers featured in this story are identified by first name and call sign only. ZAPORIZHZHIA OBLAST – For tonight's clearing mission on the cold windy steppe of southern Ukraine, the munition of choice is the Spear. In a cramped dugout less than eight kilometers from Russian forces, Ukrainian soldiers prepare the bombs, taping wires and tail fins onto long tubes of black steel fitted with menacing iron spikes