According to the Ukrainian Institute for Mass Information, 97 journalists and media workers have been killed, and at least 235 Ukrainian national or local newsrooms have been forced to close, relocate, or stop broadcasting since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. In the meantime, Nieman Reports estimates that the revenues of the Ukrainian media sector have fallen by two-thirds.    

Yet, three years into the conflict, the Ukrainian free press still seems to be holding up. For fifteen months, Reporters without Borders and NewsGuard have monitored the work of 50 Ukrainian newspapers, assessing how well they managed to guarantee transparency, accuracy, and quality despite the difficulties caused by the conflict. According to the results, published last September, “Ukraine’s media is proving that it is possible to uphold the highest standards of journalism, even in the most difficult times — and that it is crucial to do so.” 

Few media embody the resilience of the Ukrainian press more than the Kyiv Independent. Founded just three months before the outbreak of the war by a group of young journalists who had been collectively fired by the Kyiv Post, Ukraine’s oldest English-language newspaper, the Kyiv Independent quickly became the main source of information on Ukraine for the international public.   

Simone Benazzo: You began your career at the Kyiv Post in 2017, and were among the founders of the Kyiv Independent in 2021. What’s the main lesson you’ve learnt as a journalist?  

Toma Istomina: That you should never compromise on the key standards and values of journalism. It seems quite obvious to any Western journalist, but it’s not exactly clear when you are a young student or an early-stage journalist in Ukraine. A lot of our media are owned by oligarchs, by business people who have connections with the political circles and parties. They see the media as a powerful tool in their pocket to influence the decisions and the discussions in the country.  

I was very lucky. I began my career in a publication that did thorough journalism. It had a wealthy owner, but also editorial independence. So I didn’t have to learn that lesson the hard way from the start. But when we were fired from the Kyiv Post, I realised that you can be punished for doing your job well as a journalist by being thrown out of your work. 

When we were considering launching the Kyiv Independent back then, experienced Ukrainian journalists recommended that we make a deal with the owner [of the Kyiv Post],  tone it down a bit, listen to what he says and do what he asks, because that’s “how things work”. But we, as a group of young but determined journalists, didn’t believe that should be the case. There’s no reason for us to continue to be journalists if we don’t get to do this job honestly, properly, sticking to facts and standards, without being mouthpieces for some businessman who can shut you down at any moment when he or the government doesn’t like what you’re saying.  

We launched the Kyiv Independent because we truly believed in quality journalism. And we now have a huge following of people across the world who share our values, support us with monthly contributions, and basically share a cause with us. If you stick to your standards and values, it will pay off. 

In 2022, the Kyiv Independent garnered praise and support from Western politicians and readers for being a reliable source on Ukraine in English. Does your newsroom still feel that level of support?   

There is an interesting situation out there. From what we see based on data, the interest in Ukraine has decreased around the world. Fewer people are following news from Ukraine and reading stories produced in Ukraine and about Ukraine. But at the same time, as a media outlet that has been covering Ukraine all this time, we have quite a lot of authority on the subject. One sees that on tools like Google News or Google Discover. That’s why we are one of the main sources for those who continue to follow Ukraine. Traffic on the Kyiv Independent has been increasing, and our audience has been growing across platforms, from YouTube to newsletters. Fewer people are interested in Ukraine, but many of those who are choose the Kyiv Independent as their source.  

The interest in Ukraine has decreased around the world.

Our paying subscribers have also been growing steadily. In 2024, we hit a record of almost 15000. We launched a special “birthday campaign” in November, and it was the most successful campaign we’ve ever done: we got 1500 new paying members in less than a month.  

How do you interact with your community? 

We have a very close relationship with our community. It’s not people who just pay to get the news. We have a Discord chat where we communicate with our paying members. We send them a lot of emails and internal newsletters to update them on what’s happening in the Kyiv Independent. We get a lot of feedback, and we share it with the entire company. It helps us know what our community thinks of what we’re doing. We know what they appreciate, and what they would love to see more of. We also hold online community events where our journalists discuss a specific topic. For instance, when we release a new investigation on Russia’s war crimes  – something we do on a regular basis – we hold a special closed screening session just for our members, followed by a discussion. 

In these turbulent times, in which Ukraine has become a very political topic, discussed in all elections worldwide, we at the Kyiv Independent have been very privileged to have such a strong community. These people understand why supporting Ukraine matters, why they cannot just leave Ukraine alone to deal with Russian aggression. We invest a lot of our resources into maintaining that relationship and making sure that our community knows who we are and what we stand for. They know they can reach us personally. And I think they appreciate it.  

The US and Russia are currently discussing a ceasefire in Ukraine, but Kyiv has not been invited to the negotiation table. How do Ukrainians feel about this situation?  

When Trump was elected president, there was a lot of concern among supporters of Ukraine around the world. There was a fear that Ukraine could not rely on US support as much as it used to. But in Ukraine, there was a lot of hope and optimism. I think Ukrainians understood that the strategy of the previous US administration wasn’t to allow us to win, but to survive. There was hope that President Trump would be bolder and more decisive in his actions. If he really wanted to end this war, maybe he would be a stronger leader that would push Russia to stop it. 

But after Trump called Putin before he consulted with Kyiv on the strategy to follow, after he basically admitted that he doesn’t see Ukraine and Europe as equal parties at the negotiating table, I think there’s a lot of disappointment in Ukraine. We understand that we are on our own, and in many ways, we really depend on Europe. Of course, Ukraine can always choose to continue to fight, even on its own. But we understand that our resources are quite limited and that Ukraine needs support from abroad.  

Apart from the peace talks, how is the general morale of the Ukrainian population three years into the war? 

In the last three years, we have been woken up every night by the warning sirens. Sometimes they are followed by explosions, sometimes they are not, but we are all woken up by that. We’ve had three years of interrupted sleep, stress, tragedy, misery all around us. For three years, our friends have been fighting in trenches instead of doing what they like and what they normally do, because Ukraine doesn’t have a professional army. It’s an army of ordinary people who were mobilised to defend their country. 

Ukraine doesn’t have a professional army. It’s an army of ordinary people who were mobilised to defend their country.

It’s a very difficult moment for Ukraine right now, but I think we’ll find a way to come out stronger, as we always do, and I really hope we can do it together with Europe. I hope we can come up with a strategy to protect the continent from what looks like a grim future – one where leaders without values decide for others, disrespecting international law, human lives, and human rights, and just do whatever pleases their egos and their understanding of their role in world history.  

Do you think there’s something the West still doesn’t get right about Ukraine?  

With Ukraine, the situation is much better now. But there’s a lot the West still doesn’t get about Russia. They think that this is mainly Putin’s war and that the Russian people are forced to fight in it. But according to multiple polls, there’s a lot of support for this war inside Russia. Even members of the Russian opposition living abroad, who have managed to escape Putin’s totalitarian regime, are not very helpful in this fight that Ukraine is essentially doing for them, because they failed to stand up to the authoritarian leader they’ve raised inside their country.  

The West still doesn’t get that Russia is not a normal country that made a mistake. Modern Russia has a history of aggressive actions, from Chechnya to Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. It has also been murdering people in Western countries because they opposed Putin. It has been waging hybrid attacks; it has interfered in Western elections.  Yet for some reason, the West is still waiting for things to get back to normal, so that it can again buy cheap Russian gas, go to Russian opera, read Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. The West romanticises a state that is the embodiment of extreme cruelty, disrespect for human rights, aggression –  horrible things that nobody in their right mind wants to see in the world.  

The Kyiv Independent reported on women calling on the Ukrainian government to demobilise their loved ones. It also questioned unsubstantiated claims by Ukrainian intelligence that Putin has cancer, and reported on the “outgunned and outmanned” Ukrainian soldiers on the frontline in Chasiv Yar. How do you navigate the challenge of holding your government accountable in wartime? 

Some government registries are not open under martial law. When you reach out for a comment to a Defence Ministry official, they can tell you, “This is a state secret,” or “This is something that you cannot disclose during the war.” Sometimes, they can use this as an excuse to avoid answering the question. There are definitely some limitations to journalistic work.  

Another big limitation is the question of self-censorship, which every Ukrainian journalist needs to deal with. When you learn about outrageous facts or decisions taken by the government or the military command, you must reflect on whether to make them public. It’s a difficult question if you consider how it may affect the morale of the soldiers and the situation in Ukraine in general, or how Russia can use that information to its advantage. Russia is a state-sized KGB agent who spots your weakness and hits there. 

The mobilisation of men has been a big topic of discussion in Ukraine. Some men want to fight, and they volunteer to join the army. Others don’t volunteer, but they understand the importance of mobilisation. When the army calls upon them, they show up. But some men don’t want to fight, and that’s completely understandable. In these years, we’ve seen what Russian soldiers are doing to our soldiers when they end up in captivity. They kill them. They torture them. When they do make it out of captivity, they come back in a horrible state. It’s natural that some men are scared and don’t want to go to the front.  

There have been some episodes of government brutality to enforce mobilisation rules, but they have been blown out of proportion on social media. It’s very likely that Russia had a role in this, because it divides Ukrainians and sows instability in the country. 

When you learn about outrageous facts or decisions taken by the government or the military command, you must reflect on whether to make them public.

At the Kyiv Independent, before publishing sensitive information, we always consider whether it could harm Ukraine. We would not disclose the location of a sensitive infrastructure site, which could then become a Russian target. But when it comes to wrongdoing, misconduct, or corruption, we believe that it’s very important to expose it now, even during the war, even if it concerns the military, even if we know that it will have some negative effects on the morale of Ukrainians, and people’s trust in the armed forces will be affected.  

The only way to fix things is to expose them and put pressure on the authorities to react and fix them. Very often, when an issue is out of the public eye, it doesn’t get fixed, but when there’s pressure from society, authorities are pushed to take action. Perhaps now more than ever, it is important that we change the things that prevent us from being effective, treating people with dignity, and upholding human rights. So we’ll continue to expose wrongdoing as we’ve done since the first big investigation that was published in the summer of 2022 about a commander who was accused of abuse and all kinds of misconduct. 

How would you assess the current state of Ukrainian democracy? 

That’s a difficult question. In some ways, it’s better than it has ever been. However, there are issues that we still need to fix. But Ukraine continues to be quite democratic in spite of the war.  

It’s a tricky balancing act between being able to defend ourselves as a country and still being a democracy. For example, we cannot hold elections under martial law. Based on polls, people seem to understand why it would be very challenging to hold elections in wartime. That’s not exactly democratic, but we cannot afford to put resources into organising elections right now, because it would endanger a lot of people. Moreover, it would be impossible to give soldiers the opportunity to vote.  

Overall, I think Ukrainian democracy is still strong. If you look at EU countries such as  Hungary or Slovakia, with all the crackdowns on media, I wouldn’t say the situation in Ukraine is worse.  

The Kyiv Independent doesn’t just focus on war. Sections like “Dare to Ukraine” and “Explaining Ukraine”, as well as the newsletter “Explaining Ukraine with Kate Tsurkan”, cover many aspects of Ukrainian life and culture. Why do you think it’s important to talk about Ukraine as a “normal country”, beyond conflict and geopolitics?  

It’s part of our mission. Before 2022, many people couldn’t even find Ukraine on the map. Then they discovered it, but only through the lens of war. They follow war headlines, know about the death toll, or that another piece of Ukrainian land has been occupied, another building attacked. Yet they don’t necessarily understand what this country is, how old its history is, how rich its culture, how beautiful its nature and its architecture. 

It is important to use the current momentum to show the world what Ukraine is: a well-educated, artistic, creative, and entrepreneurial society. Ukraine is also a very technologically advanced country, which comes as a surprise to many people. In the context of war, people are more likely to care about something that they know and understand better, and it’s very important that the world continues to care about Ukraine.  

The second reason is our company’s strategy. We know that at some point, hopefully, this war will end, and we will need to diversify our coverage even more to continue to thrive. That’s what we are preparing for. We have a culture section, a business section. We’re preparing to cover post-war reconstruction. We’re prepared to cover tourism and all the things that normal countries do.  

At the same time, we’re also venturing more into our region because we consider ourselves “experts” on Russian aggression by now. Across Europe, Russia is carrying out aggression in other, more hybrid ways. We are also covering that and want to do more on it this year. We want to continue to expose the threat that Russia represents, and we hope that our expertise can make a difference to others who will have to face it.  

On a personal level, how do you think you’ve changed over the past three years?  

As a student, I would read Ukrainian history and think, “Oh my God, we were so unfortunate here and there and there, but we persevered anyway. And we were so strong here, we were so strong there.” I admired the history of the Ukrainians because they valued freedom more than anything, and were so brave. I admired Ukrainians who were fighting for the independence of our country in 1917. And all those Ukrainian artists and dissidents who stood up to the Soviet authorities despite being severely and cruelly punished for it. Many were killed, many were sent to Siberia or just thrown into jails.  

Now I’ve learned the hard way that this was not an exaggeration made by historians. That’s what Ukraine is; that’s who we are. Under extremely difficult circumstances, we’re choosing our people, our rights, our beliefs, and our values over the comfort of a “normal life.” I’m very proud of what we’ve achieved as a country, and what we’ve done at the Kyiv Independent. I’m also very proud of what I’ve managed to do on a personal level. I realised that I’m capable of more than I ever thought, that I’m stronger than I ever imagined.