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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Members of the Trump administration speaking at the Munich Security Conference this weekend pressed Ukraine on concessions to end the war. We look at the view from Kyiv on their demands.
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As the Trump administration publicly hammers out its plans on the Ukraine war, it's also pressing Ukraine for deals in exchange for more aid — including giving the U.S. mining rights for rare earths. -
As President Trump presses Ukraine to quickly end a war started by Russia, the Ukrainian government readies an agreement to sell rare-earth metals to the U.S. in exchange for continued aid.
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President Trump is pressing Ukraine to quickly end a war started by Russia. Ukrainians, meanwhile, are responding with dread as their government scrambles to find leverage.
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President Trump says he will meet President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia, after phone calls with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to start peace negotiations. -
Reactions to the changes in USAID run the gamut. Some leading voices — like Mexico's president — are in favor. Others fear that lives will be lost as health care programs are cut. -
An incredibly popular map of the shifting frontline, created by two childhood friends, has become an essential tool for Ukrainians seeking a realistic view of where the war stands.
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Correspondents in Kyiv, Mumbai, Johannesburg, and Mexico City give examples of the effects of the Trump administration's gutting of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
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Ukrainian soldiers have been saying for weeks that North Korean troops have been fighting alongside Russians. But it looks like those troops might be pulling back now.
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President-elect Trump has promised to end two foreign conflicts. NPR correspondents in Israel, Russia and Ukraine asked people about their hopes and fears as Trump takes office.
