Joanna Kakissis
Joanna Kakissis is a foreign correspondent based in Kyiv, Ukraine, where she reports poignant stories 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 and a ninety-year-old "mermaid" who swims in a mine-filled sea. Kakissis highlighted the tragedy for both sides with a story about the body of a Russian soldier abandoned in a hamlet he helped destroy, and she shed 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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Ukraine's best-known soldier began fighting Russians in eastern Ukraine in 2014, at age 18, forgoing dreams of becoming an artist. He died earlier this week on the same frontline.
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Russian and Ukrainian forces have been fighting over the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Both sides have suffered horrific losses. Russia is trying to encircle Ukrainian forces still in the city.
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More than a year after Russia invaded Ukraine, the fighting grinds on. Meanwhile the Group of 20 leading economies could not agree on a statement about the war.
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Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine a year ago today. The mood in Ukraine is somber as residents mark the anniversary.
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The southern port of Kherson was the first major Ukrainian city occupied by Russian forces. Despite deep ties to Russia, an army of citizen spies helped to liberate the city in November.
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President Biden made a historic visit to Ukraine's capital on Monday to mark almost a year since Russia's invasion. Biden met with Ukraine's President Zelenskyy during the visit.
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Deputy ministers from various ministries in Ukraine are being forced out of power amid corruption investigations. Do the firings mark a shift toward transparency?
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The killing of children's author Volodymyr Vakylenko has become a symbol of Russia's war on Ukrainian culture. His last work was a diary of life under Russian occupation.
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It's been 10 months since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We speak to our correspondents in both countries about what life is like there now.
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A month after being liberated, the Ukrainian city of Kherson is getting bombarded daily from Russian troops less than a mile way. Meanwhile, authorities are searching for Kremlin collaborators.