Bob Miller | for E&P Magazine
It's tough living in Kyiv these days. It certainly is tough being a journalist in Ukraine's capital city. There are frequent power outages, a steady stream of air-raid sirens. Lacking essential resources, the municipal government had trouble keeping the roads clear of snow this year. Plumes of smoke rise from the tops of buildings. Drones can be seen hovering everywhere. There is a constant sense of unease and worry for loved ones in battle.
The war is relentless.
At the Kyiv Independent, a small team of journalists is telling these stories. The news outlet was born in 2021, just three months before Russia's full-scale assault on Ukraine began in 2022. A group of journalists, dissatisfied by their previous newsrooms' restrictions on their work, decided to start something new. They conceived a less-restrictive, more ethical newsroom, now free to cover the raw effects of war, explore the power struggles and political infighting from a neutral position, and uncover corruption. An entire team within the newsroom is dedicated to producing documentaries about war crimes happening across Ukraine.
The team bonds over the work, over the drumbeat of war, over everyday frustrations — like spotty electricity and connectivity — and over the frenetic pace of breaking news. There's a commitment they share — to creating important, on-the-ground news for a global audience.  And they're doing it in creative ways.
A local newsroom, with international significance
Olena Zashko (foreground) is a videographer with The Kyiv Independent. She's seen here with Senior Reporter Francis Farrell documenting the effects of war on the country. (Photo courtesy of the 24th Separate Mechanized Brigade)
The Kyiv Independent is a local newsroom for an international audience. Based in Ukraine's capital city, it employs roughly 90 people — journalists, editors, photographers, videographers, as well as business and operations personnel.
It is an English-language digital-only publication with the primary objective of educating the world about Ukraine, particularly its capital city. Most readers are in the United States, with Americans making up more than one-third of the online audience. The U.K. and Canada are the next largest national demographics. The organization is seeing some growth in Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.
An appeal on the website asks readers to make monthly or annual donations of $5, $10, $30 or more. There is no paywall.
Memberships, subscriptions and donations account for more than 70% of the Independent's revenue, according to Yana Zhuryk, membership growth manager.
Members of The Kyiv Independent's newsroom meet in late March 2026. (Photo courtesy of The Kyiv Independent)
As Ukraine finds ways to beat back Russian invasion and take the war to Vladimir Putin's backyard, the easiest word to describe the people who live in Kyiv — and in this independent newsroom — is “resilient.â€
But don't.
They're tired of hearing it.
It's not that it's wholly inaccurate. But “resilience†implies overcoming or recovering from misfortune or change. The Independent team and the Ukrainian people are not recovering. They're enduring.
Elsa Court, the audience development manager for the Kyiv Independent, said she has used the word herself. But now, she and her friends use it in much more sarcastic contexts. The word rings hollow after years of protracted war.
“I just noticed that people were coming to Kyiv, praising the resilience, and then sort of leaving again, and I'm like, well, that's great, but that doesn't actually help Ukrainians,†Court said. “It also became a joke between me and my friends. We'd slip and fall on the ice, and say, ‘But, yeah, it's good for your resilience.' It became this really sarcastic thing that we would say. I realized that there was a complete disconnect between how we were feeling in Kyiv and how it was perceived outside Ukraine.â€
In its list of values, outlined on KyivIndependent.com, The Kyiv Independent pledges to “always be at least partly owned by its journalists†and never by a single wealthy owner or oligarch. (Photo courtesy of The Kyiv Independent)
Under the leadership of Editor-in-Chief Olga Rudenko, the newsroom produces a spectrum of story types, with war coverage and its consequences making up a large percentage of the work. The reporting also includes the day-to-day struggles of a city grappling with infrastructure issues and documentary reporting of war crimes.
Court said, “For example, Ukrainian children in Russian-occupied territories: what happens to them in terms of education, and how Russia indoctrinates them? What happens when Russia steals Ukrainian art in occupied territories? What happens with sexual violence, religious violence, things like that? And they spend months investigating one topic, and then create a documentary out of it, out of their findings, which I think is a really good way to show quite heavy topics in a bit more visual way and more engaging way than just sort of an article.â€
Yana Zhuryk, the membership growth manager, added that making documentaries is crucial for documenting the war: “I would say the War Crimes Investigative Unit is one of the most important aspects of our work. It's quite expensive to do investigative journalism like that, but it's also an important way to collect the evidence. They're investigating the war crimes and to collect the evidence of what Russia is doing on the occupied territories in Ukraine. So, in the future they can be held accountable for that.â€Â
Court pointed out that their investigations also look at corruption in their own country.
The Kyiv Independent's war crimes investigative team is seen here on stage at the “Crimea: The War Before the War†film premiere in 2026. (Photo courtesy of The Kyiv Independent)
“One thing I've heard is we're not afraid to tackle difficult topics when it comes to Ukraine,†Court said. “When things go wrong inside Ukraine, we don't hide that, and we have a very strong editor-in-chief, and that's the core of what she believes in, as well. You need to highlight when there is a case of suspected corruption within the government or someone close to the government, whether there are abuses within a Ukrainian military unit.â€
One of the reasons the Independent has created such meaningful work is because the journalists who cover Kyiv and Ukraine make their homes there. It's personal to the reporters who do the work. Just like any Ukrainian citizen, they have to juggle the personal disruptions along with the professional challenges.
“I am Ukrainian, so for me, all this started not in 2022 but in 2014,†Zhuryk said. “I'm not originally from Kyiv; I'm from a small town in the central Ukraine, so I started to see the war a bit earlier than some other people. A lot of people from my town were drafted to the war back then, and some of them are still fighting. So, for the past 10 years, I've been living in Kyiv.
“There was quite a change when I came here, because in my hometown, everyone kind of already talked that things might escalate and be like a full-scale war in Kyiv. I remember, back in maybe November, December 2021, just a few months before the full-scale invasion started, everyone was talking, ‘It's not gonna happen. They are not so stupid; we are in the 21st century' and stuff like that, and I was like, I mean, if the U.S. intelligence, the U.K. intelligence is saying that this will probably happen, you probably need to believe in this. It's kind of hard for me, because I never left Ukraine since the war started. I decided to stay in Ukraine and continue living here and working here. I used to work mostly in the IT sector, and then at some point I was like, I want to do something useful, because I already made the choice to stay here, so I want to do something useful with the choice that I made.â€
Zhuryk added, “From a morale perspective, I'd say that working here helps because you are surrounded by people who share the same values as you do, and you see all of the hard work that the newsroom does. They go to the front lines. They go to the sites of the attacks, and that kind of helps you keep going, as well, because you understand that this is very important work that we are doing here.â€
Kyiv Independent Senior Reporter Francis Farrell and Videographer Olena Zashko are seen here reporting on the protracted war. (Photo courtesy of The Kyiv Independent)
Court and Zhuryk described taking cover overnight in parking garages. Sleep is often disrupted. In early July, Kyiv was under attack by scores of missiles and “hundreds of drones.†The war comes with visible damage. It is not unusual to pass sites destroyed by bombs on the daily walk to the office. When the attacks are at their worst, the reporters work that much harder to get the story.Â
The team's safety is paramount. The newsroom does not send reporters out while air-raid alerts are active. They live in fear of “double-tap attacks,†in which a second round of explosives are directed at first responders and journalists. Their office location is not published anywhere. The staff is instructed not to post photos of themselves where a portion of the building's exterior can be seen, or even in front of windows that could give away the building's location. Trips to the front lines are carefully planned.
The organization also provides free therapy sessions and team retreats away from the rubble. The Kyiv Independent has won more than 20 awards for its work — among them, the 2025 Freedom Fighter Award from the Center for European Policy Analysis; a 2025 Online Journalism Award for Innovation in Revenue Strategy, awarded by the Online News Association; and a 2023 European Press Prize Special Award.
In a promotional video on the website, Deputy Editor Toma Istomina, says: “In a world of conflict, disinformation and distrust, can a small newsroom from Ukraine make a real difference? When we founded the Kyiv Independent in 2021, we wanted to believe so. We had a romantic idea to build a news outlet free from oligarch or government influence, one that would connect Ukraine to the world and give it the voice it deserves.
“It was never supposed to be easy,†she continues. “But we had no idea how hard it would get.â€
Bob Miller has spent more than 25 years in local newsrooms, including 12 years as an executive editor with Rust Communications. Bob also produces an independent true crime investigative podcast called The Lawless Files.
