Chart of the week: What did Ukrainians search online in 2025?
What did Ukrainians Google in 2025? (Nizar al-Rifai/Luca Léry Moffat/The Kyiv Independent)
This year saw Donald Trump's return to the presidency, a shouting match with President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, and the famed U.S.-Ukraine "minerals deal."
There were talks in Istanbul, Alaska, Miami, Geneva — almost Budapest — and peace plans of all shapes and sizes.
Meanwhile, Russian troops steadily advanced westwards, encircled Pokrovsk, hunted civilians with drones in a "human safari," and claimed to have taken the front-line city Kupiansk as the year came to a close — only for President Zelensky to prove them wrong with a broadcast from the town a few days later.
There was diplomatic yoyoing over Tomahawk missiles, Russian frozen assets, and American sanctions on Russia.
Ukraine's anti-corruption agencies were almost neutered, only to be reinstated after civil society's fiery reaction.
Newly emboldened, the agencies published damning investigations into top party brass, causing the biggest corruption crisis of Zelensky's tenure and the dismissal of his titanic right-hand man, Andriy Yermak.
And there was the routine humdrum of mass Russian airstrikes on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, causing death, destruction, and blackouts.
How did Ukrainians make sense of it all?
Every year, Google publishes a list of search terms that saw an unusually high number of queries. It's not words that are popular every year, like "weather" or "news" — but rather the words that piqued people's interest in 2025 more than in other years.
The most searched query in Ukraine was "light outage schedule." Moscow's devastating air campaign against Ukraine's energy infrastructure picked up this fall, and continued yet again last night as Russia launched 635 drones and 38 missiles, leaving entire oblasts without power.
After months of relentless attacks on power plants, gas production facilities, and the electricity grid, load shedding is commonplace — with some Ukrainians facing over 12 hours a day without power, according to energy think tank Green Deal Ukraina.
Organizing one's day around the light outage at home is a common feature of life in Ukraine. It will come as no surprise to many Ukrainians that this was the most popular query this year.
Lower down the list, here are a few other terms that caught Ukraine's attention in 2025:
Melania Trump: Searches jumped for the First Lady of the United States after her husband's inauguration. Melania also attracted attention after it was revealed that she wrote a letter to Putin raising the plight of Ukraine's children. It's estimated that roughly 20,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted by Russia.
NABU: The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), a key anti-corruption agency, was thrust into the global spotlight in July when it was stripped of its independence. After the biggest protests in Ukraine in years, President Zelensky swiftly backtracked and reinstated its powers. In November, the agency went public with a high-profile investigation into top Ukrainian officials, some of whom have been accused of siphoning off taxpayer money from Ukraine's devastated energy sector.
White Ticket: This was a label assigned to non-combat units in the Soviet military, but is used colloquially today to describe those who are exempt from military service due to health, profession, or other reasons. Ukraine’s mobilization drive ramped up this year as the country seeks to replenish battlefield losses. The process has been contentious and unpopular, with several scandals of violence leading to a reform obliging recruitment offices to wear bodycams.
The Bachelor 2025: This is Ukraine's 14th season of "The Bachelor," a television show where a single man dates multiple women over several weeks, until he proposes to one of them. The popular show has garnered particular attention this year, with famous Ukrainian actor Taras Tsimbalyuk starring as the bachelor in question. A group of charismatic girls, watch parties, and social media furore are making this year’s season a unique cultural moment.
Yulia Svyrydenko: Ukraine's prime minister, appointed in July. Before that, she was the economy minister and instrumental in pulling off the "minerals deal."
You can explore more trends here, which include women's military uniform, famous Ukrainian boxer Oleksander Usyk, pickup trucks for Ukraine's Armed Forces, and much more.
