We interviewed ex-foreign minister Kuleba: Here's what you helped us accomplish this week (Patreon)

Dear Kyiv Independent community members,

We hope that your 2025 is off to a good start so far. Last week, we did not send the weekly community letter, catching up on some much-needed rest. We're back now — well-rested and prepared for whatever the new year will bring.

Here's a look at not only what you've helped us accomplish during the last weeks, but also everything that's happened in the last year. Thank you for standing with us. We're proud to rely on our readers!

We'd also like to give a warm welcome to the 130 new members who joined our community this week. Especially as we face the uncertainty of 2025, we're grateful for your support.

Here's what you helped us accomplish at the Kyiv Independent these weeks:

We interviewed Ukraine’s ex-Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who said that "Ukraine today is in the strongest position ever." You can also watch the video interview here — pictured above is a frame from the recording.

Our most popular story this week was about Ukraine's ability to strike deep into Russian territory. For Ukraine, 2024 was a breakthrough year in the development of long-range drones, and Kateryna Hodunova's story explains what these attacks were able to achieve over the past year.

Another of widely-read story was the op-ed by Stanislav Aseyev titled "I survived a Russian torture camp. So I had to see Assad's Sednaya prison." Aseyev is a Ukrainian writer — and a survivor of the Izolyatsia prison in Russia-occupied Donetsk, notorious for its torture of prisoners — as well as the first Ukrainian journalist to see the Sednaya prison and death camp after the fall of Syria's al-Assad regime earlier this year.

We also interviewed Latvian Foreign Minister Baiba Braze about Latvia's support for Ukraine in 2024 despite the political uncertainty, as Russia makes front-line advancements and Trump's inauguration date approaches.

We explained how Russia uses the diamond industry as a way to fund its war. Despite sanctions, Russian diamonds enter international markets, as industry loopholes make it nearly impossible to trace a diamond's origin — meaning that these diamonds can reach consumers around the world.

In a special year-end edition of "Ukraine This Week" host Anna Belokur looks at Ukraine over the past year and the top moments that defined the country and its fight for freedom in 2024.

Our previous edition of Belarus Weekly also takes a look back at 2024 and its defining events for the country, including Russia's drone incursions into Belarusian territory, Lukashenko's deepening alliance with Putin, and Belarus' continued descent into totalitarianism.

In case you missed it, we answered your questions in our latest written Q&A about the war. Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit a question — we weren't able to answer all of them, but we really appreciated reading everything you had to say. We hope you find the answers insightful!

Thank you for standing by our side as we bring independent, locally sourced news about Ukraine to the world.