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Francis Farrell photo

Francis Farrell

Senior Reporter

Francis Farrell is a senior 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

Analysis: New Commander-in-Chief Drapatyi faces a manpower mess of Syrskyi's making

by Francis Farrell
"The transformation of the defense forces cannot end with a change of minister, team, or department head. It must continue until fair and understandable rules become the norm for everyone who serves the state." The words of Mykhailo Drapatyi, posted on Facebook just days before he was named Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces, foreshadowed the challenges he would soon face. Two and a half years after he took over the job from popular general Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Oleksandr Syrskyi's ten
Mykhailo Drapatyi at a desk pictured in January 2025

Ukraine has a new commander-in-chief — Who is Mykhailo Drapatyi?

Latest: Zelensky dismisses Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi amid widespread protests. Thousands of protesters gathered nightly in central Kyiv in recent days, many of them calling out the name of one of Ukraine's most respected generals: "Drapatyi!" The mass protest in the capital, which began on July 15 after President Volodymyr Zelensky ousted Ukraine's popular, reform-minded Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, had turned into a call to replace Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander-in-chief. As details

Analysis: Why many Ukrainians feel Commander-in-Chief Syrskyi must go

by Francis Farrell
"Fedorov = more Russian deaths, Syrskyi = more Ukrainian deaths." This slogan, neatly written on cardboard, was one of thousands held aloft in Kyiv and across Ukraine as outrage over the country's wartime leadership boils over. Much of Ukrainian society, soldiers and civilians alike, is up in arms over President Volodymyr Zelensky's decision to dismiss popular and innovative Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov. Zelensky's primary motivation for the decision was debated, with theories including