‘They won’t silence the truth’: Reuters war correspondent honored with Gongadze Prize after surviving Kramatorsk attack

The 2025 George Gongadze Prize for Ukrainian journalists was awarded to Ivan Liubysh-Kirdei, as announced during the online award ceremony. 

Liubysh-Kirdei is a cameraman, photographer, and war correspondent for Reuters. In August 2024, he was seriously injured by a Russian shelling attack while on assignment in Kramatorsk, resulting in a coma that lasted several months. He is now in recovery. In 2015, he received the German Deutscher Kamerapreis for Best News Report from a War Zone for the film “Escape from Ilovaisk”, created for German broadcaster ARD.

Other nominees for the prize included investigative journalist Mykhailo Tkach of Ukrainska Pravda and Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief and founder of The Kyiv Independent.

“This award gives me motivation to keep working, working, and working. The Moskovits get nothing from us. They won’t silence the truth. We’ll do this together. I’m proud of you,” Liubysh-Kirdei said in his speech, addressing his fellow nominees.

The ceremony was hosted by journalists Olha Snitsarchuk and Andriy Dubchak.

The 2025 jury included:

• Myroslava Gongadze, journalist, public figure, and widow of George Gongadze
• Volodymyr Yermolenko, philosopher and UkraineWorld editor-in-chief
• Sevgil Musaieva, Ukrainska Pravda editor-in-chief 
• Diana Dutsyk, journalist and Kyiv-Mohyla Business School representative 
• Thomas Brunner, entrepreneur and Austrian volunteer center founder 
• Tetiana Troschynska, media manager and 2024 Prize laureate 
• Maksym Butkevych, human rights defender, journalist, and Armed Forces officer 
• Yevhen Hlibovytsky, journalist and Frontier Institute director 
• Marcin Walec, director of the National Democratic Institute in Ukraine

The Gongadze Prize was established by PEN Ukraine in partnership with the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School Alumni Association and Ukrainska Pravda. Its goal is to support journalists who take on challenges, innovate in their storytelling, open new opportunities in the media environment, and build sustainability in their work.

The prize is funded entirely by patrons—graduates of Kyiv-Mohyla Business School—who share the Prize’s values and aim to improve Ukrainian society through quality journalism.

In previous years, the award went to Tetiana Troschynska (2024), Bohdan Lohvynenko (2023), and Mstyslav Chernov and Yevhen Malolietka (2022).

Photo: Gongadze Prize (Dmytro Kuznietsov, Serhii Sivakov)