Joanna Kakissis
Joanna Kakissis is an international correspondent based in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she leads NPR's bureau and coverage of a conflict that has upended millions of lives, affected global energy and food supplies and pitted NATO against Russia.
Kakissis began reporting in Ukraine shortly before Russia invaded in February. She covered the exodus of refugees to Poland and has returned to Ukraine several times to chronicle the war. She has focused on the human costs, profiling the displaced, the families of prisoners of war anda ninety-year-old "mermaid" who swims in a mine-filled sea. Kakissis highlighted the tragedy for both sideswith a story about the body of a Russian soldier abandoned in a hamlet he helped destroy, and sheshed light on the potential for nuclear disaster with a report on the shelling of Nikopol by Russians occupying a nearby power plant.
Kakissis began reporting regularly for NPR from her base in Athens, Greece, in 2011. Her work has largely focused on the forces straining European unity — migration, nationalism and the rise of illiberalism in Hungary. She led coverage of the eurozone debt crisis and the mass migration of Syrian refugees to Europe. She's reported extensively in central and eastern Europe and has also filled in at NPR bureaus in Berlin, Istanbul, Jerusalem, London and Paris. She's a contributor to This American Life and has written for The New York Times, TIME, The New Yorker online and The Financial Times Magazine, among others. In 2021, she taught a journalism seminar as a visiting professor at Princeton University.
Kakissis was born in Greece, grew up in North and South Dakota and spent her early years in journalism at The News & Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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In a stark rebuke of Russia, Ukraine joins the West in celebrating Christmas on Dec. 25 instead of Jan. 6-7 as it traditionally has done.
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Ukraine's government acknowledges the gains in its most recent counteroffensive have been small. And it worries Western allies are distracted by the war between Israel and Hamas.
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After a classmate was killed in his hometown of Bakhmut — the longest and bloodiest battle in Russia's war on Ukraine — a rescue worker volunteered to evacuate people from the front lines.
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Zaporizhzhian Cossacks are warriors who have been revered for centuries in Ukraine. A family is maintaining the Cossack traditions by training people with swords, maces and their bare hands.
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Award-winning novelist Victoria Amelina, who retrained as a war crimes researcher to document Russian atrocities and preserve Ukrainian culture, has met a tragic end.
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Soldiers spent months making clandestine trips across Ukraine's Dnipro River to plan the counteroffensive. Instead of facing off against Russian forces, this unit found itself fighting floodwaters.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a rare and brief trip to Hiroshima, Japan this weekend to re-energize support for the war from key Western allies.
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On his arrival, Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram: "Japan. G7. Important meetings with partners and friends of Ukraine. Security and increased cooperation for our victory. Today, peace will be closer."
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Ukraine's top judge has been arrested after allegedly receiving nearly $3 million in bribes for favorable rulings, the latest crackdown on endemic graft as Ukraine seeks to join the European Union.
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An agreement allowing Ukrainian grain to ship through the Black Sea has been extended for two months just a day before its expiration — overcoming Russia's threats to pull out of the deal.