Thank you for being one of our 25,000 members: A message from our COO as we prepare for 2026 (Patreon)

Dear community members,

My name is Zakhar Protsiuk, and I’m the chief operating officer at the Kyiv Independent. My title might not reveal it, but one of the key goals of my work here is building and sustaining our readers' support. That’s why sending out this letter to you feels truly special.

I’m writing to thank you, on behalf of the Kyiv Independent, for helping us reach our goal of 25,000 members before the end of 2025. No matter when you joined — either in the last weeks or in 2021 — we’re lucky to have you as part of our community.

You are one of the 25,000 people who make the Kyiv Independent possible. This is the best gift you can give us, and we are very grateful to have you on our side.

I’m sending you this letter as we are preparing to host a small Christmas party for our team at our office in Kyiv. We’ll give Secret Santa presents to each other (one of the traditions we’ve cherished throughout our four years of existence) and have a few beers and slices of pizza.

Whether we want to or not, we’ll also inevitably talk about what happened in 2025 and reflect on the passing year. And what a year it’s been.

I’ll be honest, 2025 was not easy, neither for Ukraine nor for the Kyiv Independent.

Russia’s advance on the front line accelerated and became even deadlier. We covered it extensively, but it got harder. Front-line journalism became more dangerous in 2025 due to the increased threat from Russian drones. In October, Russia killed three journalists in Ukraine while they were reporting. All three were killed by high-precision drone strikes — it was not an accident. We are now purchasing drone detectors and other equipment for our front-line reporters — thanks to donations from our members —  to adapt to this new reality and keep reporting.

Missile and drone attacks on civilians, in Kyiv and many other cities across Ukraine, became a daily routine. We were lucky that none of our team members in Kyiv were injured, but a few had their apartments damaged, and nearly everyone endured countless sleepless nights spent in subway stations, parking garages, or other shelters we use during the attacks to feel relatively safe.

In the last few months, Russia has successfully targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving Ukrainians with disrupted electricity supply and outages often lasting 8-10 hours a day. We have a powerful generator that allows our office to stay online even during long outages, but it still makes our work harder. We can’t replicate the same setup in our apartments, and most often our work doesn’t stop when we leave the office.

We also faced a new challenge we hadn’t encountered in the previous three years of the invasion. Donald Trump’s chaotic peacemaking efforts generated a lot of noise and put significant strain on Ukraine, as he chose to equate Ukraine and Russia in the responsibility for Russia’s aggression. Our newsroom had to adapt. As our editor-in-chief, Olga Rudenko, put it, we had to quickly learn to separate statements from actions, and not get carried away on the days when Trump seemingly woke up pro-Ukrainian. For a newsroom that has existed for only four years, we handled that challenge well.

Yet, 2025 was also a year of hope and love we hadn’t seen since 2022. And the main source of that love was you, our community members. Every step of the year, you stood by us and made us stronger.

After every story, every front-line report, documentary, or letter we published, we felt your interest, curiosity, sometimes factual criticism, but always genuine support.

Our community grew. We started the year with 14,000 members and are closing it with 25,000 people standing behind our work. To those who chose to join us in the last few weeks: Thank you — it means a great deal to us. I’d also like to thank everyone who is in our community — no matter when you joined, you’re an integral part to what we accomplish at the Kyiv Independent. 

We are truly lucky to call ourselves a reader-funded and reader-centered organization. We pledge that in 2026 we’ll do everything possible to make sure you feel that firsthand.

Thank you for your trust in us. We will cherish it together at our Christmas celebration today and every day in 2026. And we have a lot of work to do in the year ahead.

Happy Holidays!

Best,Zakhar ProtsiukChief Operating OfficerThe Kyiv Independent