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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Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will restore the independence of the country's anti-corruption watchdogs after protests over a controversial law that would bring the agencies under government control.
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President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he will heed protesters angry about his new anti-corruption policy.
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The anti-corruption agencies were created after pro-democracy protests in 2013. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy claims corruption cases take too long and suggested the agencies were compromised. -
The two sides made little progress toward a ceasefire — despite President Trump's threats of harsh new economic penalties on Moscow should it fail to agree to a deal by early September. -
President Trump threatened to punish Russia with heavy tariffs on countries that trade with Moscow if the Kremlin fails to reach a ceasefire deal with Ukraine, while promising Kyiv weapons. -
The northern regional capital has become a frequent target of Russian drones, missiles and guided bombs. Now, Ukraine's top general says at least 50,000 Russian troops have massed across the border. -
During another night of intense airstrikes, Ukraine relied on its dwindling supplies of air defense munitions to shoot down Russian drones and missiles.
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With Russian attacks escalating, Ukraine is dependent on air defense systems and munitions supplied by western allies to protect Ukrainian cities. -
The Ukrainian military says that today it attacked airfields in Russia, where fighter jets used to bomb Ukrainian cities are stored. They say it's an attempt to weaken the Kremlin's war machine.
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Ukraine is facing a summer of escalating Russian airstrikes on its cities. The Ukrainian President has called on the U.S. to provide more air defense systems.
