Over the past three years of full-scale war, Ukraine’s cultural figures have shifted from focusing solely on their craft to becoming diplomats, advocating for their culture abroad as the Russian army continues its relentless attempt to destroy it. At the same time, within Ukraine itself, a resurgence of national
Half of the human beings alive today are descended from the Yamnaya, a group that lived in what is now Ukraine 5,000 years ago, according to new DNA research led by David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School.
For decades, if not more, English speakers the world over referred to Ukraine’s capital as Kiev, pronouncing it kee-yev. Few people knew they were using the Russian name for the city. The city is pronounced keeiv in Ukrainian and is transliterated correctly into English as Kyiv. In fact, until
Editor’s note: The transcript of this interview has been edited for length and clarity. Poland holds a special position among Kyiv's partners — with a shared history of Russian oppression and conquest, its leaders have left no room for doubt that the full-scale invasion of Ukraine represented an existential threat
Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov’s statue was removed from Kyiv’s Pechersk district for symbolizing Russia’s imperial past and his cruel experiments on humans and animals, the Kyiv city administration said on Jan. 27.
President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Poland for a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Auschwitz death camp, Zelensky’s spokesperson, Serhii Nykyforov, told Ukrinform on Jan. 27.
I first visited the looted museums of Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine, in May 2024. At the time, my team at the Kyiv Independent’s War Crimes Investigations Unit and I were beginning an investigation into the illegal export of artifacts from Kherson to occupied Crimea by Russian forces
"I would like to thank the ministers of culture of Poland and Ukraine for their good cooperation. We are waiting for further decisions," Donald Tusk wrote in a post on X.
The return of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump to political life has raised uncomfortable questions about the future, not only within the U.S. but also on the global stage. This is particularly true for countries like Ukraine, which relies on U.S. aid as it’s locked in a
Editor's note: This article is a shortened on-site version of KI Insights' The Week Ahead newsletter covering events from Dec. 16 to Dec. 22. Sign up here to start your week with an agenda of Ukraine-related events, delivered directly to your inbox every Sunday. Central banks accounting for over 40%
The year 2024 proved to be another landmark for books about Ukraine and Ukrainian literature in translation, with a continued trend in publishing in fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. Unsurprisingly, Russia’s ongoing full-scale war against Ukraine was the most common topic among these works. Whether through incisive on-the-ground reportage that
Two weeks before Ukraine's pivotal 2004 presidential election, 22-year-old filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk found herself at the center of a heated exchange during a trip to Moscow. The upcoming elections were a topic of group conversation and one Russian woman, bristling with anger, demanded, “How dare you Ukrainians think you are
A new political museum at the same site will open on Feb. 15, 2025, Finnish authorities announced. The museum will reportedly focus on Finnish-Russian relations, including developments in the 21st century.
Why do some young people in the West romanticize Communism? How did Russian President Vladimir Putin manage to sell the idea of retaining the imperialist regime to the Russian people?
Poland can make Ukraine's accession to the EU contingent on the resolution of the Volyn massacre as joining the bloc is not a matter of the country's survival, a Polish minister said in a media interview published on Oct. 15.
Ukraine commemorated the 83rd anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy on Sept. 29, with President Volodymyr Zelensky saying that it is a "terrifying symbol" of what can happen when the world "lacks the determination to stand up against evil." The Babyn Yar tragedy was a mass murder of nearly 34,
Despite being scarred by Russia’s full-scale war, the city continues to draw locals and tourists to its lively streets, sunny beaches, and legendary nightlife.
Russian forces have damaged several ancient burial mounds on the front line in southern Ukraine, potentially violating the Hague and Geneva Conventions, according to research from the Ukraine Conflict Observatory published on Sept. 4.
Speaking on Polish television in late July, Poland’s Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz reminded Ukrainians that even his country’s overwhelming support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia has its limits. Ukraine could never expect Poland’s backing in joining the EU if it didn’t “resolve” the historical
Ukraine should become a member of the EU despite disagreements with Poland over the historical issue of the mass killings of Poles in Volyn in the 1940s, Speaker of the Polish Parliament Szymon Holownia said on Aug. 31.
Following a decade-long battle, a substantial part of Crimean artifacts is now on display in Kyiv until the occupied peninsula is liberated, officials say. After a lengthy legal struggle, the return of the so-called "Scythian gold" last year was, for Ukrainians, an important cultural milestone amid the ongoing decade-long war
The Kyiv Independent will launch a travel show called “Dare to Ukraine.” In each of the six episodes, host Masha Lavrova will travel to six regions across the country to explore the local culture, architecture, food, popular activities, people, and everyday life. The first episode of “Dare to Ukraine” will
Kiper made the statement after Odesa Mayor Hennadiy Trukhanov criticized the renaming of streets on Aug. 1, claiming that Odesa City Council had "nothing to do with this."
The city of Kharkiv has decided to rename three metro stations and 48 streets to "remove Russian markers from public space," Governor Oleh Syniehubov announced on July 26.
Ukraine was “a blind spot” for Germans up until Moscow’s full-scale invasion, Franziska Davies, a historian of Eastern and Eastern Central Europe, told the Kyiv Independent in an interview. “And if there is a blind spot, propaganda narratives can easily fill it with falsehoods,” Davies said, explaining why Russia-planted
Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said that Poland supports Ukraine against Russian aggression as much as it can, but the relations are "not perfect" due to unresolved historical issues. Warsaw has been Kyiv's staunch supporter since 2022, although the ties have soured in the past months over trade disputes.
Foreigners will have to pass two exams — on Ukraine's Constitution and Ukraine's history — to obtain Ukrainian citizenship, the government announced on May 30.
Editor’s Note: This interview has been edited for clarity. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, it dramatically changed the continent. The largest conventional war in Europe since World War II demanded Western leaders move away from their peacetime thinking and step in decisively to
In late April 2024, in central Kyiv, heavy cranes began dismantling a sculpture erected to commemorate 17th-century Pereiaslav Treaty between the Cossacks and Muscovites, symbolically closing a chapter of a shared history. It was the very same agreement lauded by Russian President Vladimir Putin as supposed evidence of Ukraine's historical
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a law in 2023 officially changing the date of Ukraine's World War II commemoration to May 8, aligning it with most of Europe and indicating a full break from the Soviet-era holiday.
The Pereiaslav Council of 1654 saw the Cossacks, inhabitants of modern-day Ukraine, enter into an alliance with Moscow against the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
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