Dear community: We are overwhelmed by your show of support!

Yesterday we launched membership via Patreon. Over 300 people became our patrons on the first day. This is an unprecedented level of Patreon support for Ukrainian media. Thank you!

We want to take this opportunity to answer some frequently asked questions about the Kyiv Independent and the Kyiv Post.

What is the Kyiv Independent?

The Kyiv Independent is a new publication in the making. It is being launched by the former editorial team of the Kyiv Post in partnership with international media consultancy Jnomics.

What happened to the Kyiv Post?

The Kyiv Post was abruptly shut down by its owner, real estate tycoon Adnan Kivan, on Nov. 8. The entire staff was fired. Read more about it here: https://savethekyivpost.com.

The shutdown followed tensions between staff and the owner, who tried to interfere in the editorial independence the Kyiv Post has maintained for 26 years. The editorial team believes it was fired for standing up to the owner.

We asked the owner to sell the newspaper or hand over the brand to its team so that the independent Kyiv Post can live on. He refused.

So is the Kyiv Independent the new Kyiv Post?

The Kyiv Independent will carry on the Kyiv Post’s legacy, including its standards and values. It also serves the same mission: delivering reliable news about Ukraine to global audiences.

But we want to take advantage of the fresh start and make the Kyiv Independent even better. We will be working closely with our community to collect feedback and create a modern and trustworthy media outlet together with our audience.

Will the Kyiv Independent be published in English only?

We will publish primarily in English but we also plan to provide some coverage in Ukrainian.

Will there be a print version?

The Kyiv Independent will launch an online version soon and doesn’t rule out the possibility of running a print version in the future.

Who is funding the Kyiv Independent?

Right now, you are. There is no rich owner behind the Kyiv Independent — only a team of journalists. We are raising money from donors and crowdfunding. In the future, we plan to use a diversified reader, commercial and endowment-supported business model.

What will happen to the Kyiv Post? Will it reopen?

Kyiv Post owner Adnan Kivan has said that he wants to reopen the publication.

Does Luc Chenier, new CEO of the Kyiv Post, work with you?

No. After shutting down the Kyiv Post and firing the editorial team, owner Adnan Kivan hired Luc Chenier as the newspaper’s CEO and charged him with recruiting a new team and restarting the Kyiv Post.

Chenier has said in interviews that, under his watch, the Kyiv Post will emphasize lifestyle content and launch versions in new languages, including Arabic and potentially Russian.

The team of the Kyiv Independent has not had any communication with Chenier since his appointment. We believe that we can no longer count on editorial independence under the current owner.

But Chenier said in an interview that the “core staff” stayed at the Kyiv Post?

As far as we know, none of the Kyiv Post’s 30+ editorial staff stayed on to work with Chenier.

Chenier said in a statement that tensions were mounting “due to plans for the launch of a Ukrainian-language version of the Kyiv Post, which was opposed by many members of the newsroom team.” Is this true?

This is not true. The newsroom team didn’t oppose the expansion and launch of a Ukrainian-language version of the Kyiv Post. Moreover, we started implementing the expansion plans two weeks before we were fired. What we opposed was the owner’s unilateral decision to install his loyalist to lead the project.

Decisions about hiring and firing editorial staff must be made by the chief editor, not the owner. The owner’s appointee had no experience of working in a newsroom with editorial independence and didn’t speak English, which is the working language at the Kyiv Post.

Will Brian Bonner, the former chief editor of the Kyiv Post, join the Kyiv Independent?

When the owner fired the Kyiv Post team, Brian Bonner announced that he will retire from journalism after 45 years in the profession. The Kyiv Independent team includes nearly every member of the former Kyiv Post newsroom, except for Brian. We don’t rule out working with him in the future, but right now Brian is taking his much-deserved rest. We have his support and appreciate it.