Czechia's top diplomat to visit Ukraine as countries 'turn the page' on parliament chairman's controversial remarks
Petr Macinka, Czechia's new foreign minister, said he would visit Ukraine in the near future, local media reported on Jan. 6.
Team
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
‘A cult of death’ — Former Soviet dissident on Russia and authoritarianism's global rise
In an authoritarian society, it’s free thinkers who are targeted by those in power. A book, a social media post, a private conversation — anything can be used against those who refuse to conform in a country ruled by intimidation, lies, and outright violence. This is why, in a world where authoritarianism appears to be on the rise, a free press is more important than ever.
Few understand this reality better than Igor Pomerantsev, a veteran radio broadcaster, poet, and former Soviet dissident. H
Malanka: Ukraine's winter ritual of masks, mischief, and good fortune
Each winter in southwestern Ukraine, villages are transformed by a riot of color, noise, and a kind of organized chaos. Costumed performers that are sometimes human, sometimes animal, sometimes entirely otherworldly wander from house to house, dancing, singing, playing instruments, cracking whips, and offering shots of alcoholic drinks.
Their mission is simple but profound: to sweep away misfortune, summon laughter, and ensure abundance in the year ahead.
This lively tradition is known as Mala
Zelensky calls out India, UAE over their support of Putin's 'assassination attempt' claim
"Where is their condemnation of the fact that our children are being bombed and people are being killed all this time? I don't hear India, frankly, nor the United Arab Emirates," President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Dec. 30.
Zelensky, European leaders to meet on Jan. 6 in France following high-level meetings
Ukraine is preparing to host a new round of high-level security discussions with Western partners in early January, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced on Dec. 30, signaling an effort to maintain diplomatic momentum.
Bringing art to the cemetery — How 'The Invisible Gallery' reclaims legacy overshadowed by Russian imperialism
In Ukraine's cemeteries, some graves are more than symbols of memory. They hold the truth about the country's enduring place in European culture, testifying to centuries of creative achievement and innovation — and to the lengths Russia has gone to obscure and even try to steal that legacy.
"The Invisible Gallery," a new cultural initiative that highlights the lives of eight Ukrainian artists, seeks to bring greater attention to Ukraine’s historical contributions to the art world. Through a gui
‘We are f–king fascists’ — Pussy Riot memoir looks at everything wrong with Russia
Upon being released from prison in December 2013 after serving time for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred,” Russian political activist Maria Alyokhina observes that she and her fellow Pussy Riot punk group members “arrived in a different country.”
Outwardly, Russia sought to convey to the world during this period that it was a serious global power through events such as the Sochi Winter Olympics. The reality, as Alyokhina writes, was completely different: just a few months later, Russi
Putin calls European leaders 'piglets,' declares war goals will be met 'unconditionally'
If Russia's demands were not met through diplomatic efforts, Vladimir Putin warned that Russia would "liberate" what he claimed were its "historical lands" on the battlefield.
2 Ukrainian films shortlisted for 98th Academy Awards nominations
Mstyslav Chernov’s "2000 Meters to Andriivka," a documentary chronicling Ukrainian troops’ perilous advance to retake a strategically important village from Russian forces, has been nominated for best documentary feature.
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.
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
