Your weekly update (Patreon)

You are seeing this post because you are one of the 708 people who have pledged monthly support to the Kyiv Independent via Patreon.

Each Friday, we inform our community about the work of the Kyiv Independent, a new Ukrainian English-language media outlet.

We are extremely grateful for your help in carrying out our mission: bringing quality stories about Ukraine to the world.

Here’s what we at the Kyiv Independent did this week:

We covered all major talks between the West and Russia during “diplomacy week,” as the two sides clashed over the threat of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. On Monday, the U.S. met with Russia. On Wednesday, NATO talked to Russia. On Thursday, the OSCE Permanent Council met to discuss the security crisis.

On Wednesday, we held our first exclusive online event for our patrons. Our chief editor, Olga Rudenko, moderated a discussion between readers and our defense reporter Illia Ponomarenko on the threat of a further Russian invasion. We had more than 30 patrons join us for the conversation. We will continue to hold online events – watch out for announcements on Patreon.

On Thursday, the sixth episode of our podcast aired on all platforms. This podcast, “Media in Progress,” documents our journey of creating the Kyiv Independent. Our podcaster Elina-Alem Kent talked to our reporters Oleg Sukhov and Max Hunder about how Kazakhstan suppressed anti-government protests with the help of Russian-led troops, and how it could affect Ukraine’s future.

On Friday, we covered the cyberattacks that targeted Ukrainian government websites.

This week, we also published a special report by our author Igor Kossov about how President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration moves to dismantle press freedom in Ukraine.

Read all stories atkyivindependent.com

We now have 3,470 subscribers to our newsletter, Ukraine Daily. As our subscriptions continue to grow, the open rate remains at 50%, an impressive result compared to how newsletters typically perform. Ukraine Daily comes out six days a week. Make sure you’re subscribed to it.

Trying to launch a new media outlet is an uphill battle. Thank you for standing by our side in this journey. Tell us how we can do better.

Thank you for your support and have a wonderful weekend!