Help rescue animals from the front line — shop our Companion Collection 🐾

Shop Now
KI short logo

Culture

The Hidden Canon: Discover Ukrainian literary classics

A Kyiv Independent project backed by the Ukrainian Institute

Ukrainian InstituteLearn more
Luke Harding's 'Betrayal' charts the collapse of the rules-based order — and who is to blame
Culture

Luke Harding's 'Betrayal' charts the collapse of the rules-based order — and who is to blame

by Kate Tsurkan

Luke Harding's “Betrayal: Trump, Putin and the New Age of Conquest" begins with a turning point in the full-scale war most people probably haven't spent enough time coming to terms with: North Korean soldiers getting ready to join the biggest land war in Europe since 1945. "Soon they would be stumbling through alien woods and fields, sent by one dictator to help out another. It was a sign of a world turned upside down. The rules-based international order — the post-1945 understanding that state

More from Culture

Load More

NewsLetters

News Feed

Can women solve Ukraine's manpower problem?

The Kyiv Independent’s Kateryna Hodunova examines whether drafting women could actually help solve Ukraine’s manpower shortage, what challenges it would create, and why the proposal faces resistance in Ukrainian society and government.

In Kyiv district battered by Russian strikes, a protest to save trees turns ugly

In one of Kyiv's hardest-hit districts, a heating pipeline meant to help residents weather Russian attacks this winter has instead pitted them against their own city's administration. Residents of Teremky, a neighborhood in southwestern Kyiv, say that while they are not against the pipeline itself, they oppose what they see as an unnecessary destruction of greenery to build it. But after a violent pushback by municipal security guards injured several demonstrators, including women, the protest

Demonstrators gather at the Kyiv City State Administration in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 23, 2026.

About Culture

Our reporting on literature, films, art, and traditions from Ukraine and the latest news on culture in Eastern Europe.

Ukrainian culture
Ukrainian culture has survived centuries of Russian attempts to appropriate Ukrainian art, silence Ukrainian artists, and erase the Ukrainian language. Modern Ukrainian writers, filmmakers, and musicians — some of whom are serving on the front lines — continue to develop Ukrainian culture and fight for Ukraine’s future.

Read more

Most Popular

Editors' Picks

News Feed