 Dear reader,
This is Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent, and I was never supposed to send you this email.
Because there was never supposed to be a Kyiv Independent.
As you might have guessed, today is our birthday, and I’m getting sentimental.
I’m writing to you from our office in the heart of Kyiv, Ukraine, where we are having an especially murky morning. In all fairness, it could have been much worse: For a moment it looked like Russia was going to attack Ukraine with a barrage of missiles, but then its planes turned back. Whether it was a training exercise or intimidation, it sure did a good job waking us up. What a way to start our birthday, right?
I locked myself up in a small conference room, away from the noises of our newsroom, to draft this note to you. I wanted to take a moment out of this hectic day to be alone with you, our readers and supporters, to share my thoughts and gratitude.
The Kyiv Independent is three years old today. It might not seem like a big deal. The New York Times is 173 years old. Le Monde is 80. Der Spiegel — 77. The Guardian is 203. What’s three years compared to that?
For us, every day of these three years was hard-won.
Nothing about how the Kyiv Independent started was normal. When you imagine yourself launching a new venture, you must imagine months of careful planning, pitching to investors, putting together a team, and picking out a location for an office.
Well, we had four days. You read that right.
Three years ago, we were fired from a newspaper for standing up to censorship attempts. It was gutting. We were a bunch of young journalists, standing up against a rich owner who thought that he showed us how the world runs — and who runs it.
Fortunately, we were young and rebellious enough to not accept it. Four days later, we announced that we were launching our own newspaper. We will show them, we thought. We will show them that you can do independent journalism, and not bow to anyone.
There was one tiny inconvenience. We had no money. This grand idea of doing independent English-language journalism from Ukraine had very good chances of crashing when it met with reality.
And then… you showed up. Our readers. Thousands of you have chosen to support our work — you made it all possible.
When the full-scale invasion hit, just three months after we started the Kyiv Independent, you were there for us. And we showed up for you, too — we became your window into Ukraine as it has been fighting for its existence.
I’m going to be very honest with you: It is getting harder. I did some math today: The Kyiv Independent has spent 90% of its short lifetime living through a full-scale war.
And I now understand that, for all its shock and turbulence, the first year of it was the easiest. We were getting a lot of praise back then, people often calling us “brave” for staying and reporting for Ukraine. I think there is more courage in what we do today: persevering, doing our job day after day, with no clear end in sight.
Because just like three years ago, we know this is the right thing to do — and we’re willing to beat the odds, again.
It’s you who make it all possible. We now have a community of 12,000 members supporting our work. Today, on our birthday, we are starting a campaign to get 1,000 new members in the next month.
Here’s why we need it: It’s not just a nice number. It would grow our community by 8%, meaning we can hire more people, like journalists who bring you the news, defense reporters who help you make sense of the war, or videographers who produce documentaries about Russian war crimes.
That means that, as we are facing 2025 and the uncertainties it will bring, we will be stronger, more resilient, and will be able to continue bringing you reliable journalism from Ukraine, whatever may come.
Thank you for being a supporter of the Kyiv Independent. |
