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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On Monday, President Biden appeared to rule out delivering F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, but Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov tells NPR he's optimistic Western allies will eventually supply them. -
Ukraine's defense minister says he's optimistic Western allies will supply his country with advanced fighter jets, even as Ukrainian forces are poised to start training on tanks they've been promised.
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German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Wednesday his country will export more than a dozen of its Leopard 2 battle tanks to Ukraine. The move follows weeks of pressure from Western allies.
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Ukraine's government dismissed several deputy ministers and regional administrators Tuesday -– a move seen as a response to allegations of corruption and misuse of power.
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Mykolaiv, Ukraine, was poised to start piping drinkable water to its residents for the first time in months, but a Russian missile struck a major pump station in a recently liberated area.
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It's been 10 months since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. We speak to our correspondents in both countries about what life is like there now.
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A Kharkiv metro station became a bomb shelter as the city came under Russian attack. Now, at the holiday season, it's also a Christmas village where kids can drop off letters to Grandfather Frost.
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Wary of missiles and artillery, residents of Ukraine's second-largest city moved their traditional holiday decorations underground as they celebrate their first Christmas at war.
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A month after being liberated, the Ukrainian city of Kherson is getting bombarded daily from Russian troops less than a mile way. Meanwhile, authorities are searching for Kremlin collaborators.
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Recent hits by Russian missles on Ukraine's power grid and water systems have affected hospitals, cell phone service, and basic necessities such as heating and cooking.
