Olha Rudenko, the editor-in-chief and co-founder of the English-language media The Kyiv Independent, and renowned investigative journalist, head of the investigative department of the publication “Ukrainska Pravda” Mykhailo Tkach have been awarded the Georgiy Gongadze Award in 2026.
This is reported by Finway
Award Ceremony and Nominees for the 2026 Award
The ceremonial award presentation traditionally took place on May 21 in Kyiv – the day Georgiy Gongadze was born. The shortlist of this year’s nominees also included journalist and war correspondent for Radio Liberty, Maryan Kushnir.
“Olha Rudenko has been a finalist for the award three times. This is Mykhailo Tkach’s second nomination.”
Achievements of the Laureates and History of the Award
Olha Rudenko has made it to the final list of the Georgiy Gongadze Award for the third consecutive year. She not only leads The Kyiv Independent but also regularly prepares materials for leading international publications. In May 2022, she appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and by December of the same year, she received the “Women of Europe” award. In 2025, she was honored with the Freedom Fighter Award from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA, Washington) for her steadfast commitment to the development of independent journalism during the full-scale Russian invasion.
Mykhailo Tkach heads the investigative department of “Ukrainska Pravda” and is known for his high-profile materials that have repeatedly sparked public discussion and official investigations. Before joining “Ukrainska Pravda,” he worked for six years on the program “Schemes: Corruption in Details” (a joint project of Radio Liberty and the TV channel “UA:First”), and he was also a journalist for the “Money” program on the “1+1” channel for five years. For his significant contribution to the development of journalism and coverage of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Mykhailo Tkach was awarded the Order of Merit III degree.
The Georgiy Gongadze Award, established in 2019 by the Ukrainian PEN in partnership with the kmbs Alumni Association, the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, and the publication “Ukrainska Pravda,” annually honors independent journalists. Only members of the Award’s Chapter have the right to nominate candidates and determine the winner. The laureate receives a statuette and a monetary prize of 200,000 hryvnias.
In different years, the award has been given to Vakhtang Kipiani (2019), Pavlo Kazarin (2020), Myroslava Barchuk (2021), Mytsislav Chernov and Yevhen Maloletka (2022), Bohdan Lohvynenko (2023), Tetiana Troshchynska (2024), Ivan Lyubish-Kirdey (2025). A special posthumous award in 2022 was given to photojournalist Max Levin.