We're at the Perugia International Journalism Festival: Here's what you helped us achieve last week

Dear Kyiv Independent community members,

Thank you for your continued support.

This week, the Kyiv Independent team traveled to Perugia, Italy for the city's International Journalism Festival, the largest annual media event in Europe. Some of our team participated in panel discussions and Q&As about running a newsroom during a full-scale war and addressing "Ukraine fatigue" in the media. The festival is free to everyone, and you can watch the live stream on the festival's YouTube channel, here.

We'd like to give a warm welcome to the 184 new members who joined this week. Thank you for supporting independent journalism in Ukraine.

Here's what you helped us accomplish at the Kyiv Independent last week:

• We reported on Russia's spring offensive. Francis Farrell's article explains what the next stage of the war might hold, after a winter with slow Russian territorial gains and a battlefield situation saturated with drones.

• We also reported on Chinese nationals fighting in Russia's Armed Forces. Anna Belokur's short video explainer breaks down everything we currently know about the two Chinese POWs captured by Ukraine. Kollen Post's article looks at evidence that over 160 Chinese nationals are fighting in Ukraine — and their warnings about the brutality, racism, and unpaid wages in the Russian military.

• We published a video explainer on how Trump "ends wars." Masha Lavrova takes a look at what happened the last time Trump sought to end a war and what a ceasefire deal brokered by Trump might actually look like.

• We interviewed Trump's spiritual advisor on Russia's war against Ukraine. Pastor Mark Burns, who recently shifted his stance towards supporting Ukraine after a trip to the country and witnessing the aftermath of a Russian missile attack, said "Putin is pure evil." You can also watch the video interview here.

• We also interviewed a Ukrainian author about Ukraine’s 1980's dissident art movement. Yuri Andrukhovych discusses the 40-year anniversary of the literary counter-cultural movement he helped found and the dangers faced by pro-Ukrainian artists in the Soviet times.

• We wrote the obituary of Marharyta Polovinko, an artist killed on the front line. Marhartya was a rising star in Ukraine's contemporary art scene, and her art was influenced by the full-scale invasion: Many of her wartime-related pieces were made with her own blood. The eulogy from the unit she served in said she died "with honor and weapon in hand."

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