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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Beleaguered residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine, welcome the United States' green light to hit Russian targets with American weapons.
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The Biden administration has given Ukraine permission to use certain U.S. weapons to strike inside of Russia near Kharkiv for “counter-fire purposes,” according to two U.S. officials.
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After Western military aid rushed to Ukraine and helped stall the strongest Russian offensive since the full-scale invasion, those on the frontline reckon with the consequences of delayed decisions.
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Some residents of Ukraine's second-largest city say they feel abandoned by the West.
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Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, is the country’s artistic heart, especially for classical music. Despite weeks of Russian strikes on the city, an orchestra refused to cancel its festival.
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Kharkiv faces daily strikes from Russian forces who pushed across the border in a renewed military offensive. Dozens have died in the last week, most due to guided bombs launched from Russia.
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Only four staffers work at the weekly Peremoha, which means "victory." Its motto: "Don't let ordinary people be erased from history." -
A Crimean Tatar couple in Ukraine, displaced by Russian troops, sees parallels to the Soviets' forced deportation of 200,000 Tatars from Crimea 80 years ago.
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Ukraine says it is struggling to contain a new Russian offensive in a northeastern border region. Its army is short on troops and ammunition. How has Russia gained momentum in this war?
