The jury of the Georgiy Gongadze Award has announced the names of the finalists vying for the prestigious journalism award in 2026. Among this year’s nominees is Maryan Kushnir, a war correspondent for Radio Free Europe and the author of the documentary “Give Me Back My Name”, dedicated to the topic of the missing in action and the identification of fallen Ukrainian soldiers.
This is reported by Finway
Candidates for the Award and Their Contributions
The list of candidates also includes Mykhailo Tkach, head of the investigative department at “Ukrainian Truth,” who previously worked as a journalist and host of the program “Schemes” on Radio Free Europe until 2021, as well as Olha Rudenko, editor-in-chief and co-founder of the English-language publication The Kyiv Independent.
The selection of candidates for the Georgiy Gongadze Award is based on adherence to the principles of independent journalism, innovative approaches, and significant contributions to the development of the media sphere and specific genres. An important criterion is the creation of materials that have contributed to solving socially significant issues or helped to better understand them.
Features of the Award and History of Laureates
Only Ukrainian journalists who have remained in the profession for the past five years are eligible for the award. The name of the winner will be announced on May 21, the birthday of Georgiy Gongadze.
The Georgiy Gongadze Award was established in 2019 by the Ukrainian PEN in partnership with the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School Alumni Association, the business school itself, and the publication “Ukrainian Truth.” This award is given to independent journalists nominated solely by members of the award’s jury. The winner receives a statuette and a cash prize of 100,000 hryvnias.
The criteria for selecting candidates for the Georgiy Gongadze Award include dedication to the principles and values of independent journalism, innovation, significant contributions to the development of a specific genre or the media environment as a whole, and the creation of materials that have led to the resolution or understanding of certain societal issues and changes in the country.
In different years, the award has been given to Vakhtang Kipiani (2019), Pavlo Kazarin (2020), Myroslava Barchuk (2021), Myroslav Chernov and Yevhen Malolietka (2022), Bohdan Lohvynenko (2023), Tetiana Troshchynska (2024), and Ivan Lyubish-Kirdey (2025). In 2022, a special posthumous award was given to photojournalist Max Levin.