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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As Russian troops near the city of Pokrovsk, where a beloved Ukrainian composer wrote his most famous song — now known worldwide as "Carol of the Bells" — Ukrainians seek to safeguard his legacy.
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A Russian lieutenant general accused of using banned chemicals on Ukrainian soldiers was assassinated Tuesday in Moscow.
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The apparent assassination of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov came a day after Ukraine's security service charged him with using banned chemical weapons.
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A young soldier who lost both legs on the frontline stars in Ukraine's version of "The Bachelor," showcasing the increasing number of war-wounded Ukrainians as attractive heroes, not victims.
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Russian strikes continue to destroy Ukraine's power grid, prompting nation-wide power cuts while temperatures drop. Workers at a damaged plant try to restore its operation before the winter freeze.
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A Ukrainian soldier and his wife describe how the large-scale Russian invasion has changed their lives and their country. -
Ukrainians have been fighting for survival since Russia's 2022 invasion. With Donald Trump winning the presidential election, Ukrainians could lose the U.S. as their biggest single ally.
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Much of the world is following the U.S. presidential election, but probably nowhere more closely than in Ukraine. Ukrainians worry what a change in the White House would mean for their survival.
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In Ukraine's industrial east, which Russia repeatedly strikes, Ukrainians are bracing for a U.S. election that could make or break their country as the war enters its fourth year.
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A Ukrainian chef has just published an English-language cookbook on his country's cuisine. He says it's an important step to keeping international attention on Ukraine's fight against Russia.
