Police expose criminal network that trafficked orphans abroad, exploited draft exemptions
Thirteen children were illegally sent abroad and placed with foreign families for adoption, while law enforcemented intercepted the transfer of another 12.
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Kate Tsurkan
Culture ReporterKate Tsurkan is a reporter at the Kyiv Independent who writes mostly about culture-related topics. Her newsletter Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan, which focuses specifically on Ukrainian culture, is published weekly by the Kyiv Independent and is partially supported by a generous grant from the Nadia Sophie Seiler Fund. Kate co-translated Oleh Sentsov’s “Diary of a Hunger Striker,” Myroslav Laiuk’s “Bakhmut,” Andriy Lyubka’s “War from the Rear,” and Khrystia Vengryniuk’s “Long Eyes,” among other books. Some of her previous 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 and, in addition to Ukrainian and Russian, also knows French.
Articles
In the middle of war, Ukraine's top university reimagines Russian Studies
Eleven years into Russia’s war, a Ukrainian university is forging ahead with an unexpected academic pursuit: launching a Russian Studies program to study the country that had imposed itself on Ukraine.
“Our goal is to study Russia from different angles — its economy, its society, its elites, its foreign policy — in order to take a critical look at what Russia has done to us and the world,” said Professor Maksym Yakovlyev, co-founder of the program at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, one of Ukraine’s ol
Looking for the 10 best Ukraine-related books of 2025? We’ve got you
The year 2025 brought us more books about and from Ukraine that carry an inescapable heaviness, with war present on almost every page. Lives once shaped by literary ambitions continue to be cut short on the battlefield or under bombardment. Yet, thanks to the devotion of translators, publishers, and a growing audience of readers who refuse to look away, these voices keep traveling outward. They insist on being heard.
From the first days of the full-scale invasion, one imperative has remained co
A Russian opposition figure tries — and fails — to mythologize Zelensky
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, President Volodymyr Zelensky has come to occupy a singular place in the global imagination: not merely as Ukraine’s president, but as the voice through which the country’s courage and endurance are made legible to the world.
While an ongoing political scandal in Ukraine has involved some in Zelensky’s own inner circle, for many at home and abroad, it is in his public presence that the war’s meaning, its stakes, and its moral contours are most cle
Ukraine's parliament strips Russian from 'protected minority language' list
"Today we have finally restored historical justice and turned the page on years of distortions that were used for political pressure and to legitimize Russification. We have demonstrated our maturity as a European state," Language Ombudsman Olena Ivanovska said on Dec. 3.
Alla Horska’s life and death in Ukraine’s struggle against Russian annihilation
Editor's Note: This story was originally published in The Kyiv Independent's first-ever print edition, titled "The Power Within." You can order a copy in our e-store.
Carrying a portrait of Ukrainian artist Alla Horska at her funeral, poet Vasyl Stus, who would himself perish in a Russian labor camp 15 years later, did not shy away from calling her death a murder.
On that mournful day, when it fell to Stus to speak, he delivered a poem written in Horska’s memory. Its stark opening line — “Toda
Moldova's Foreign Ministry confronts Russian ambassador with drone that violated country's airspace
"Such incidents are unacceptable. The Republic of Moldova has rejected and will firmly reject every attack against its security and territorial integrity," Moldovan Foreign Minister Mihai Popsoi said during a press conference on Nov. 26.
Media investigation examines how 'neutral' Russian Red Cross supports Kremlin's war effort
In mid-November, the RRC and the Movement of the First co-organized a first aid competition for children from across Russia and the occupied Ukrainian territories.
The Soviets tried to silence Ukrainian poet Vasyl Stus. A new exhibition honors his legacy
While the Soviet authorities promoted their vision of ideological "universalism" — a homogenized identity that suppressed national cultures — dissenting voices were silenced through arrests, intimidation, and even murder.
Yet amid this repression, courageous figures refused to surrender their cultural identity. Among them was the poet Vasyl Stus (1938-1985), one of the era's greatest Ukrainian dissidents.
The new exhibition "As Long As We're Here, Everything Will Be Fine" at Kyiv's Mystetskyi
Why I won’t encourage my Ukrainian child to speak Russian
As a foreigner in Ukraine, I often hesitate to speak on certain social issues. Despite living here for nearly a decade, I know that my American upbringing still limits how deeply I can feel what my Ukrainian friends and colleagues experience, no matter how much I sympathize.
Still, now that I have given birth to a Ukrainian citizen, I feel I have the right to say at least this: I will never allow my child to believe there isn't a difference between speaking Ukrainian and Russian.
Recently, I w
'Not a guest house for Putin worshippers' — Controversial Russian rapper banned from entering Lithuania
Russian rapper Morgenshtern has been banned from entering Lithuania for 10 years after the government deemed him a potential "threat to national security."
‘Compared to Bakhmut, this is already a different war’ — novelist Myroslav Laiuk on his wartime reporting
As the full-scale war enters into its fourth year, novelist and poet Myroslav Laiuk has found himself drawn to front-line reporting. He has traveled everywhere, from Bakhmut to Pokrovsk and Kherson, documenting the war and those living through it.
His novel “The World Is Not Yet Made” is forthcoming in English translation from Harvard’s Ukrainian Research Institute, and his wartime reportage “Bakhmut” was published in English translation by Ukrainer earlier this year. (Kate Tsurkan, who conduct
'She wasn't afraid of the bombs' — Kherson locals in awe over Angelina Jolie's visit
For Kherson journalist Yevheniia Virlych, “difficult” doesn’t begin to describe day-to-day life in her city — “critical” is closer to the mark. So when American actress Angelina Jolie visited Kherson on Nov. 5, she and other local residents began to hope the world might finally look closer at how Russia is terrorizing them.
“Thanks to the fact that a star of truly global stature — someone with influence and media recognition — has seen the city’s realities firsthand, Kherson residents received
'They refuse to give in,' Angelina Jolie says on her Kherson, Mykolaiv visit
During her visit, Jolie was shown how medical and educational institutions in Ukraine's southern front-line regions have been moved into reinforced underground spaces to continue their operations, according to a press release from the organization.
Returning home, photographer Yelena Yemchuk finds beauty in a country at war
There was no doubt for photographer Yelena Yemchuk that upon returning to Ukraine, she would encounter the pain and loss that comes with the day-to-day reality of Russia's full-scale war — but she wasn't quite ready for how much love there was to go around, too.
"It's this understanding of what life is, the understanding of what love is, the understanding of human relationships, and this appreciation for the moment," Yemchuk told the Kyiv Independent.
"It's the most beautiful thing I've ever e
