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Kate Tsurkan

Reporter

Kate 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 and is partially supported by a generous grant from the Nadia Sophie Seiler Fund. 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.

k.tsurkan@kyivindependent.com

Articles

Culture

‘I wanted to stand beside soldiers’ — Ai Weiwei on his trip to wartime Ukraine

by Kate Tsurkan
Amid the shadow of war, the world-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has brought his first-ever exhibition to Kyiv. Commissioned by the non-profit platform RIBBON International, Ai’s installation is a site-specific response to the escalating wars threatening the world of today, and a testament to the possibilities of art in such times. Traveling beyond the Ukrainian capital, to the eastern city of Kharkiv and even the front lines, Ai has sought not only to witness the resilience of
United States

How the right wing in US, Europe is weaponizing murders of Ukrainian refugees

by Kate Tsurkan
Iryna Zarutska and her family fled Ukraine in 2022 to escape the threat of Russia’s full-scale war against her homeland, seeking safety and the promise of a new life in the United States. But that hope was shattered when she was brutally murdered in August on public transit in Charlotte, North Carolina. Decarlos Brown Jr., a homeless man with a history of violent crime and mental health issues, was taken into custody shortly after the unprovoked attack and charged with first-degree murder. Lead
Culture

‘No fate but what we make’ — Ukrainians transform storm-destroyed Burning Man installation

by Kate Tsurkan
When a storm in Nevada destroyed a Ukrainian art installation at this year’s Burning Man festival, the Ukrainian team turned a setback into a symbol. Drawing on resilience forged in more than three years of Russia’s full-scale war, they created a new piece out of the remnants within days.   The original installation, “Black Cloud” — 15 meters high, 17 meters wide, and 30 meters long — was meant to symbolize the looming threat of a new world war. The warning comes as Russia, backed by a number
Culture

What Russia stole, these Crimean Tatar authors endeavor to reclaim with literature

by Kate Tsurkan
To much of the world, Crimea is mostly synonymous with the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine — once a precious Black Sea resort, the peninsula was seized at gunpoint in 2014 and transformed into a fortified military outpost. But behind the headlines of Russia’s ongoing occupation of Crimea is a deeper, often overlooked story: that of the Crimean Tatars, the indigenous people of the peninsula, who have endured centuries of repression and now face yet another struggle for survival under Russi
Culture

We finally watched ‘Russians at War’ — it's worse than we thought

by Kate Tsurkan
“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
Culture

‘For him, Russia exemplified modern fascism’ — Ukrainian anarchist artist killed fighting on front line

by Kate Tsurkan
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
Vladimir Putin (C) poses with foreign students studying in Russia in Sochi, Russia, on March 6, 2024.
Culture

What it’s really like being Black in Russia

by Kate Tsurkan
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
Culture

The hope and horror of 12 hours in wartime Kyiv — in pictures

by Serhii Korovayny, Kate Tsurkan
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
"Ordinary People Don’t Carry Machine Guns" by Artem Chapeye
Culture

Ukrainian author-turned-soldier takes aim at Westerners' ‘abstract pacifism’

by Kate Tsurkan
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

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