Voices of Ukraine

Ivan Nebesnyy is a renowned Ukrainian composer whose music we've been using throughout the series. In this episode you'll get an introduction to Ivan and listen to some of his work.

The Kyiv Independent's Contributing Editor Lili Bivings talks about the state of journalism in Ukraine, the implosion of the Kyiv Post, the founding of the Kyiv Independent, and the publication's coverage of Russia's war against Ukraine.

The Kyiv Independent's Deputy Chief Editor Toma Istomina talks with the site's contributing editor Lili Bivings about being included on Forbes 30 under 30 in Europe list, leaving war-torn Ukraine to attend a conference in Norway, and what it's like to cover a war unfolding in your own country.
 
This episode contains explicit language.

The Kyiv Independent's editor-in-chief Olga Rudenko talks with the site's contributing editor Lili Bivings about her reaction to the Pulitzer citation for Ukrainian journalists and what it's like to cover a war unfolding in your own country.

Many listeners have asked Masha about her pronunciation of Kyiv (it sounds like Cave). She turned to linguist Yuri Shevchuk for a breakdown of the pronunciation and, in the process, ended up getting a lesson in politics and culture.

Olena Martynyuk was seven months pregnant and living in the U.S. when Russia invaded Ukraine. Her parents are in Ukraine and refuse to evacuate.

A podcast from Columbia University’s Harriman Institute. Hear stories of lives upended by Russia’s war on Ukraine.
 

Peter Zalmayev grew up in Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine and immigrated to the United States, where he got citizenship. His parents stayed in Ukraine and, in 2014, after Russia invaded Donbas, he had to evacuate them from a war zone. Two years later, Peter moved back to Ukraine, settled in Kyiv, and launched a talk show. After Russia attacked the capital he evacuated his wife and two small children to Western Ukraine and traveled back toward Kyiv to report on the war.

After Russia invaded Ukraine, Ukrainian scholar Antonina Berezovenko stayed in Kyiv in spite of the constant shelling. She is one of the few people left in her building, sheltering in the basement during air raids.

Mariya Chukhnova was born in Lutsk in Western Ukraine in the late 1980s. She participated in the Orange Revolution while she was in college. Then, like many Ukrainians of her generation, she ended up immigrating abroad and watching Ukraine’s transformation, and  now the war, from afar.