Kate Tsurkan

On New Year’s Eve in 1972, a group of Ukrainians set out to carol — a seemingly innocent holiday tradition. But for the KGB, the Soviet Union’s security services, this was no ordinary celebration. As the carolers moved from house to house, their movements were tracked.The artists and

In Alexander Lukashenko's Belarus, helping to defend Ukraine against Russia gets you labeled as a terrorist.Vasil Verameichyk, a Belarusian who enlisted in Ukraine's Armed Forces just four days after Russia launched its all-out war, was detained on Nov. 13 in Vietnam in a suspected covert operation by Belarusian secret

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.

Autocratic regimes like Russia are becoming increasingly bold in their efforts to undermine the principles and norms that came to define the democratic world order in the aftermath of World War II. A month after the start of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov even declared

Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, who has been in power for 30 years, is looking to reelect himself for the seventh time.In the run-up to the January 2025 presidential elections, Lukashenko has pardoned prisoners convicted of extremism, claiming that it was a "humane gesture" toward those who had "gone astray.

In his latest book, “On Freedom,” American scholar Timothy Snyder establishes a thought-provoking distinction between the word "liberation" and the Ukrainian wartime variant "de-occupation" to probe the fraught but necessary question: When is a person truly free?Russia's full-scale war against Ukraine has left countless settlements in ruins and displaced

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 battle for survival against Russia's campaign of total annihilation. Trump's history of fostering a rapport with Russian leader Vladimir Putin only adds a layer of uncertainty to an already volatile geopolitical landscape.

In a newly released three-hour interview, Moscow-born U.S. podcaster Lex Fridman tried to persuade President Volodymyr Zelensky that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “a serious person who loves his country."

The Kyiv Independent's Kate Tsurkan discusses with Garry Kasparov, Russian chess grandmaster and political activist based in the U.S., the current state of Russia, its continued pursuit of empire and the failures of the Russian opposition to create meaningful change.

The Russian opposition is an odd bunch. While not supporting Russia's brutal all-out war against Ukraine and its people, the leaders of the so-called opposition don't want their country to lose.A number of those who oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin and his regime have petitioned for the West to