Themes by tag: Kyiv

On March 21–22, Kyiv will host the 20th AdoptMe Days pet adoption festival. The event is aimed at those looking to adopt a pet, learn more about responsible adoption, or simply spend the weekend in a meaningful way.

Visitors will meet healthy animals from nearly 60 shelters across the Kyiv region, all hoping to find a home.

Many shelters are operating at the limit of their capacity, especially after a difficult winter. Despite the challenges, they have continued rescuing and caring for animals, hoping that spring will bring their wards not only warmth, but also loving homes.

Over the past two years, AdoptMe Days has helped more than 2,170 animals from shelters find families.

• animals
• Kyiv

Media representatives are invited to cover the Final Four of the Ukrainian Amputee Football Cup. Journalists will have the opportunity to speak with representatives of the “League of the Mighty” project, players from the four finalist teams, their coaches, as well as match officials. The event will take place in Kyiv.

The teams reaching the final stage are Bartka, Vinnytsia AMP, Pokrova AMP, and Shakhtar Stalevi.

Media accreditation is required to attend the event.

Background: The “League of the Mighty” project was launched by the Ukrainian Association of Football in 2024 to engage people with limb amputations and limb impairments in the world’s most popular sport.

• casualties
• culture
• Kyiv

Olga is only 24. She is an otolaryngologist and has been participating in FRIDA Ukraine’s medical volunteer missions for two years. During her time as a volunteer, she has visited all regions where FRIDA operates, including trips to frontline areas and children’s homes.

Most often, the doctor encounters chronic sinusitis or hearing loss. And often these conditions become chronic not because people didn’t want to seek treatment, but because there was nowhere and no one to turn to.

Since the beginning of 2026, Olga has been going on missions every two weeks. The doctor has created her own little tradition that supports both her and her patients during the missions. She gives people fortune cookies and waits for them to unfold the paper and smile.

Once, a girl of about ten read her fortune: “The future of Ukraine is in your hands; remember that.” Olya told her: “Child, remember this—it’s true.”

The hardest thing for Olya is dealing with people who have survived the horrors of the occupation. They speak about it calmly, but the doctor herself has to hold back her tears.

By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with Olga in Kyiv.

For reference: The “FRIDA Ukraine” medical volunteer missions consist of regular trips by a team of doctors to frontline and remote communities in Ukraine. Each mission includes over 20 specialists in various fields: neurologists, surgeons, gynecologists, internists, dermatologists, and others. During these trips, free appointments, consultations, and tests are provided for local residents. Recently, the team has also begun conducting cancer screenings—early diagnosis of oncological diseases—to help detect illnesses in their initial stages.

• doctors
• volunteers
• Kyiv

Participants: 

– Alina Frolova, co-founder of Media Center Ukraine, Deputy Chair of the Board of the Center for Defense Strategies;

– Otar Dovzhenko, Ukrainian journalist and media critic. Creative Director of the Lviv Media Forum, Chair of the Independent Media Council. Co-editor of the “DovgyiPes” media newsletter. Book editor;

– Ihor Solovey, Head of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

Topics for discussion: 

– Ukraine’s experience in countering Russian disinformation; 

– Key takeaways from the book and benefits for the international community

• culture
• Kyiv

Daria Ulman is the wife of soldier Kirill Ulman, who was killed on February 15, 2024. At the start of the full-scale invasion, her husband joined the ranks of the Territorial Community Volunteer Unit in Dnipro, which was formed by veterans of the 12th Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine “Azov.” In December 2022, he joined the Third Separate Assault Brigade as part of an anti-tank battalion. Kirill was killed by a sniper’s bullet.

Daria says her husband was passionate about military affairs. After his death, she regretted not having started training alongside Kirill. Over the course of a year, Daria completed six courses and underwent two full training programs. She later founded her own community dedicated to military training for women. She named it Community Ulman in honor of her fallen loved one.

Over 80 women have already completed the training, and thanks to the project, 115,000 hryvnias were donated to Kirill’s comrades-in-arms.

Journalists will have the opportunity to cover the training on March 22.

Media can arrange interviews with Daria Ulman both online and in person in Kyiv by prior arrangement.

• dead
• military
• women
• Kyiv

Since the beginning of last school year, schoolchildren in the village of Bohdanivka, Kyiv oblast, have been able to study in a modular Temporary Educational Space (TES).  The space is accessible, with a generator for uninterrupted power supply, comfortable furniture, modern tablets and multimedia panels. The TES has six classrooms and now serves more than  200 schoolchildren who previously had to travel to a neighboring village.

Bohdanivka was occupied in 2022. russian soldiers set up camp in the local school and burned it down when they withdrew. They also blew up the kindergarten, where they had stored ammunition, leaving the village without any educational facilities.

By prior arrangement, journalists can cover the work of the modular temporary educational space in Bohdanivka.

Background: This project is being implemented by IREX in partnership with the SavED Charitable Foundation and the GoGlobal NGO. They work in close cooperation with local communities who have lost their educational institutions due to russian aggression.

• children
• occupation
• russian crimes
• Kyiv

On the fourth anniversary of the terrible tragedy that occurred at the Mariupol Drama Theater, journalists are invited to attend memorial events and honor the memory of the civilian and military victims.

In particular, a prayer service will be held in Kyiv on March 15. On March 16, memorial events honoring those killed at the Mariupol Drama Theater will take place in various cities across Ukraine: Kyiv, Vinnytsia, Dnipro, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Kalush, Kamensk, Kremenchuk, Kropyvnytskyi, Poltava, Kryvyi Rih, Odesa, Rivne, Ternopil, Uzhhorod, Khmelnytskyi, Cherkasy, and Chernivtsi.

For reference: On March 16, 2022, russian occupiers dropped aerial bombs on the Mariupol Drama Theater. The word “CHILDREN,” written in large letters and clearly visible from the sky, did not stop them. Hundreds of Mariupol families were taking shelter in the theater. Hundreds of innocent people were killed that day, including children.

The russian occupation authorities restored the building, permanently destroying any possibility of conducting a fair investigation into the deaths at the Drama Theater.

• children
• dead
• russian crimes
• Dnipro
• Kyiv
• Lviv
• Odesa

HALO Ukraine deminers are currently working in the deoccupied territories of Kyiv and Chernihiv regions.

By prior arrangement, journalists can cover their work and learn about the challenges these specialists face. And, if possible, talk to people who changed their professions and went into demining with the start of the full-scale invasion.

For reference: HALO Ukraine is the Ukrainian program of The HALO Trust, the world’s largest non-governmental non-profit organization for humanitarian demining. The HALO Trust has been clearing mines and explosive ordnance in 30 countries around the world for the past 38 years.

HALO Ukraine has been operating in eastern Ukraine since 2016. Its goal is to save lives, return land to communities, and move the country forward on the path to recovery. After russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the team expanded its activities and is now clearing land in six regions: Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, and Kherson. The Ukrainian team employs nearly 1,400 people, 30% of whom are women.

April 4 is International Mine Awareness Day.

As a reminder, on April 2, 2022, the Kyiv region was liberated from the occupiers. Also in April 2022, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the Chernihiv region from russian invaders.

• Chernihiv
• Kyiv
• demining

Marking the 4th anniversary of the russian occupation of the village of Yahidne, the Public Interest Journalism Lab (PIJL) has produced an audio guide titled “Yahidne. A Village in Captivity.”
The presentation took place on March 3 in Yahidne itself, in the Chernihiv region, where 368 local residents became victims of russian war crimes.

It was on March 3, 2022, that russian troops herded almost all residents of the village into the basement of the local school, including dozens of elderly people, children, and infants. They were held there for nearly a month and used as a human shield, forbidden to leave the cramped space while russian soldiers set up a military headquarters inside the school building. Under these horrific conditions, ten people died in the basement.

The audio guide is a documentary tour of the site of a war crime — the school grounds and its basement.
The English-language version is narrated by American historian Timothy Snyder, while the voices of Yahidne residents in English are read by American writer and journalist Anne Applebaum, Canadian politician Khrystya Freeland, British journalist and propaganda researcher Peter Pomerantsev, American journalist Sabra Ayres, American-French writer Jonathan Littell, and American historian Marcy Shore.

The audio guide is available in Ukrainian and English on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
A QR code with the link is displayed on banners next to the school, which continues to be visited by tourists and foreign delegations.

By prior arrangement, journalists can speak with representatives of the Public Interest Journalism Lab online or in person in Kyiv.

Background: The PIJL team has a unique connection to the village community, as its journalists were among the first to visit the liberated Chernihiv region in April 2022.

Based on testimonies documented from Yahidne residents, the team produced a documentary film, which—together with a written report from the village—was published in TIME magazine in an issue dedicated to the publication’s centennial. In addition to English, the film has been translated into eight other languages: Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, and French.The story of Yahidne was also included in the reportage book “The Scariest Days of My Life”, which became a historical record of the first year of russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine.

• casualties
• dead
• occupation
• russian crimes
• Kyiv

On March 14, the capital will host the exhibition “Rights in Our Hands,” organized by the international movement Amnesty International Ukraine in conjunction with the Boris Paton State Polytechnic Museum at the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.

The project tells about the protection of human rights in the context of full-scale war and the daily struggle of Ukrainians for their rights. The exhibition will feature 12 portraits and stories of human rights defenders, activists, educators, volunteers, and other concerned individuals whose actions help preserve human dignity every day and prove that human rights exist not only on paper.

The faces of the exhibition are: Marta Levchenko, founder of the charitable project and Ukraine’s largest crisis center, “City of Good”; Masy Nayem, veteran, lawyer, and human rights activist; Ivan Lyubish-Kirday, Reuters war correspondent who was wounded in a rocket attack on a hotel in Kramatorsk; and other heroes.

The exhibition is free and will run until April 1.

• culture
• Kyiv