Team
Kate Tsurkan
ReporterKate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent. The U.S. publisher Deep Vellum published her co-translation of Ukrainian author Oleh Sentsov’s Diary of a Hunger Striker in 2024. Some of her other writing and translations have appeared in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Harpers, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere. She is the co-founder of Apofenie Magazine.
Articles
We finally watched ‘Russians at War’ — it's worse than we thought
“The majority of Ukrainian people hate Russians — but why, I just can’t understand," a young Russian infantry conscript who goes by the callsign Cartoon declares in the documentary “Russians at War.”
Such moments come to define “Russians at War,” which Russian-Canadian filmmaker Anastasia Trofimova shot while embedded with Russian troops who invaded Ukraine, throughout its more than two-hour runtime — passing, seemingly innocent statements that accumulate into a larger ideological contour. The
As Trump, Putin weigh Ukraine’s east in talks, new book gives voice to war-battered region
When Russia launched its invasion into Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts in 2014, the battle was not only over territory but also historical memory.
‘For him, Russia exemplified modern fascism’ — Ukrainian anarchist artist killed fighting on front line
At first, it might sound paradoxical — a committed anarchist choosing to join the army. Yet for Ukrainian artist David Chichkan, enlisting in the Armed Forces in 2024 was driven by the very political ideals that defined his world view.
“David’s military service deeply resonated with his life-long and unwavering stance of resistance to any neo-fascist, imperialist or chauvinist force,” Chichkan’s friend, filmmaker Oleksiy Radynski, told the Kyiv Independent.
“For him — just like for so many of
What it’s really like being Black in Russia
After facing police discrimination as a Black woman in the U.S., Francine Villa decided to return to her birth country, Russia, in 2019, searching for the safety America had denied her.
A year later, she appeared in a Russian propaganda documentary “Black in the USSR,” saying that she “felt free” in Russia and could “walk outside and be safe.”
But that illusion shattered in July, when she and her child were brutally attacked by neighbors who shouted racial slurs at them.
“How much more of thi
Far-right Russian group disrupts ceremony honoring victims of Stalinist purges, which included Ukrainians
Members of the Russian Community reportedly arrived at the cemetery in Russia's Karelia region before the ceremony on Aug. 5 and doused participants with water while singing the patriotic Soviet song “Katyusha,” according to Sova.
The hope and horror of 12 hours in wartime Kyiv — in pictures
Life doesn’t pause for war — not entirely. Even as missiles and drones target Ukrainian cities and front lines shift, people find ways to carry on. For those not holding a weapon, survival means more than staying alive. It also means showing up to work, gathering with friends, keeping routines stitched together with fragile hope.
In Ukraine, it also means going out to protest against the government — because even amid the chaos of war, there are moments when silence feels more dangerous than sp
Ukrainian author-turned-soldier takes aim at Westerners' ‘abstract pacifism’
From the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Western leftists have invoked “peace” as a slogan — as if peace were not already at the heart of every Ukrainian’s daily prayer. They warn the world not to “provoke” the Kremlin, as if Ukraine’s restraint could halt Russian missiles. For Ukraine’s own leftists, though, the prospect of total annihilation has laid bare how hollow abstract pacifism sounds when survival itself is on the line.
When Russian forces tried to take Kyiv in 2022, Ukrain
Ukrainian artist's 'Sculpture' series normalizes injured bodies of Ukraine's soldiers
In wartime Ukraine, soldiers who have lost limbs face not only the physical toll of their injuries but an existential question — what does life after the battlefield look like?
For the thousands of Ukrainians who have lost limbs, either on the front line or in Russian attacks, the struggle to begin again is not just personal – it is quietly shaping a cultural movement that will continue long after the war is over. Through their recovery, self-reinvention, and resolve, a new narrative in Ukrain
Trump's big Russia announcement fails to lift spirits in a fatigued Ukraine
The teasing on July 11 of U.S. President Donald Trump's "big announcement" on Russia had raised hopes in Ukraine over the weekend that the White House was finally going to take concrete action to pressure Moscow to end its full-scale invasion.
Those hopes would not be met.
On July 14, Trump instead said the U.S. will impose "severe tariffs" on Russia unless it agrees to a deal on ending the war in Ukraine within 50 days. It comes after previous deadlines to end the war of 24 hours, two weeks,
The day I first heard a Shahed drone buzzing overhead
The past 24 hours have signaled yet another decisive moment in the war, even if it might not immediately seem that way.
Ukrainian author killed by Russia awarded UK’s prestigious Orwell Prize in political writing
Two years after her tragic death in a Russian missile strike, Ukrainian author Victoria Amelina was posthumously awarded on June 25 the prestigious U.K. Orwell Prize for her book “Looking at Women, Looking at War.”
Amelina was a finalist among notable nominees in the political non-fiction category, including American journalist Anne Applebaum.
Kim Darroch, the chair of judges for the Orwell Prize, called Amelina's book "an unforgettable picture of the human consequences of war."
A famous Ukra
As Ukraine bleeds, Western opera welcomes back pro-Putin Russian singer Anna Netrebko
More than three years into Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine, many Western cultural institutions that had distanced themselves from Russian artists as a gesture of solidarity with Ukraine are now reversing course.
The U.K.’s Royal Ballet and Opera House announced on June 23 that its 2025-2026 cinema season, which is screened across 1,500 cinemas around the world, will kick off in early October with a performance of “Tosca” starring Russian soprano opera singer Anna Netrebko.
Once a leadi
Foreigners move closer to Ukrainian citizenship with new draft law, but red tape obscures their path
For years, foreigners seeking a Ukrainian passport faced a tough choice: renounce their original citizenship or give up on becoming Ukrainian. Now, that barrier will likely be removed, as Ukraine prepares to allow dual citizenship for the first time.
Since taking office in 2019, President Volodymyr Zelensky has declared his intention to allow dual citizenship in Ukraine.
“To all who are ready to build a new, strong and successful Ukraine, I will gladly grant Ukrainian citizenship,” he said in
Love, sex, survival — Ukrainian author on how war shapes intimacy in Ukraine
In Ukraine, Russia’s war of aggression has upended not just borders but the country’s cultural landscape. Conversations about identity, gender, and sexuality have gained new urgency. Women are increasingly stepping into combat roles once dominated by men, while relationships can dissolve as quickly as they form. Many people now live as if there might be no tomorrow.
Ukrainian author and singer Irena Karpa has never been afraid to dive into these topics, having challenged long-standing taboos an
‘I feel like I lost 3 years’ — Ukrainian author turned soldier Artem Chapeye on culture during war
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian writers have found themselves grappling with questions not just of survival, but of voice, purpose, and audience.
Can one write fiction in the midst of war? Can creativity endure under air raid sirens and military mobilization? And what does it mean to speak to the world — especially when much of that world is only willing to listen to Ukrainians when the subject is war?
Artem Chapeye, a Ukrainian writer turned soldier
