The Kyiv Independent is an English-language Ukrainian online newspaper founded in 2021 by former staff of the Kyiv Post and media consultancy Jnomics Media. The online newspaper is also active on Twitter.
Founding
In October 2021, disputes arose between employees of the Kyiv Post and the owner of the newspaper. Behind them, journalists at the newspaper believed that even under presidency of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, their previous critical reporting was adversely affecting the business of the owner, who had bought the newspaper from Mohammad Zahoor in March 2018, and invested significant funds in the barely profitable newspaper. The owner is Syrian-born major investor Adnan Kivan (Kadorr Group, which owns Channel Odesa 7). Brian Bonner, the former CEO of the Kyiv Post, said in April 2022 that the newspaper's "fragmentary reporting" had brought it into conflict with every Ukrainian government it dealt with so far, including Zelensky's. According to Bonner, Zelenskyy had tried to portray himself as a reformer to Western governments, and alleged that critical reporting had been seen as undermining that message. The government, Bonner said, had begun to lean on Kivan, who had seen ownership of a "crusading media outlet" as more trouble than it was worth.
The president's office denies it, the prosecutor's office denies it, Kivan denies it - but I know we were under pressure... The Kyiv Post survived [former presidents] Kuchma, Yushchenko, Yanukovych, and Poroshenko, but died under Zelenskyy. That was a big surprise to me.
Olga Rudenko, deputy editor-in-chief, told Euromaidan Press that Kivan had received "signals of discontent" from the government. Rudenko saw this as confirmation of rumors "that pressure from the presidential administration may have been a reason for the abrupt silence of an important international voice in Ukraine." This view was shared by some other journalists.
Adnan wanted to start a new Ukrainian- and Russian-language edition with a team selected by him without consulting the editorial board. On October 14, the editorial staff learned from a Facebook message by Olena Rotari (editor-in-chief of Kanal Odesa 7) that she was preparing a Ukrainian edition of the Kyiv Post as its new editor and was hiring a full editorial staff for it. Parts of the editorial board feared Kivan would "use the good name she has built up to create, in Ukrainian and Russian, 'a replica publication that would publish articles intended to serve the owner's interest.'"
Journalists of the Kyiv Post saw this as an encroachment on their editorial freedom originally promised to them by Adnan and asked him, with the support of PEN Ukraine, to either give them influence over the new publication, sell the paper, or transfer the paper's label to the editorial board. Kivan subsequently closed the newspaper on November 8, 2021, and dismissed all staff, which was seen as a renewed attack on editorial freedom and an "act of revenge."
The renewed Kyiv Post resumed work after three weeks in December 2021 with a largely new editorial team. The CEO position was filled by Luc Chenier in succession to Bonner, who had retired. Chenier sought to make the new edition "a publication that tells a more positive story about Ukraine. It was a new tone, he said, advertisers would be more willing to support it. Many people, he said, told him they had stopped reading the old Kyiv Post because the newspaper had become too depressing with its "relentless focus on corruption and government abuses."Negative news keeps coming out of Ukraine. I've been here for 21 years and I know that this is just a small drop of what Ukraine is ... We are the global voice of Ukraine - not the corruption voice of Ukraine.30 of the 50 laid-off staff members of the editorial team of the Kyiv Post founded the Kyiv Independent three days after its closure, on November 11, 2021. The journalists expressed their point of view, they did not believe that there would continue to be an independent Kyiv Post and therefore wanted to establish a new publication. The publication was publicly announced on November 15, and the first issue appeared on November 22. By November 25, its Patreon account already had 500 subscribers, by early December it had 655 subscribers, who collectively contributed $10,000 a month.