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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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.
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Winter in Kyiv, Ukraine, sometimes without electricity, heat and water, is a challenge for the country's people.
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A small country bordering Russia and partly occupied by it is alarmed by the recent arrival of tens of thousands of Russian men fleeing conscription into the Ukraine war.
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As Russia's bombardment of Ukraine's infrastructure continues, the Ukrainian government is set to receive more than $4 billion in aid from the U.S. to help keep basic services running.
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Italy is set to have its first far-right government since World War II, after a coalition of center-right parties won Sunday's elections.
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Giorgia Meloni's Brothers of Italy emerge as the single largest party. Her coalition will be able to form the next government, and Meloni is expected to become Italy's first female prime minister.
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Italians head to the polls Sunday in what could be a pivotal election with far-right candidate Giorgia Meloni poised to be Italy's first female prime minister.
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Few Ukrainian cities have suffered as much Russian bombardment as Mykolaiv, near the coveted port of Odesa. Targeted strikes led the authorities to round up suspected collaborators.
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In Ukraine's most popular summer destination, a 90-year-old grandmother encourages a rebellion against a wartime beach ban, swimming despite the threat of fines — and floating mines.
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An update on the war in Ukraine and a look at how life in the city of Odesa has changed.