Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey awarded the George Gongadze Prize 2025

Cameraman, photographer and war correspondent with the Reuters, Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey became the 7^th laureate of the George Gongadze Prize. The Gongadze Prize is one of the main awards for journalists in Ukraine whose work implements the highest professional standards.

The George Gongadze Prize is designed to support journalists who remain committed to the principles of independent journalism despite all the risks, challenges, and pressure. These are authors of innovative media solutions, formats and approaches that changed the country’s media landscape. Their materials are not published to only inform but to raise critical questions and help society to deeply understand reality, encourage solutions and boost real changes. The laureate of the Prize is determined by the Chapter.

In 2015, Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey was awarded the annual Deutscher Kamerapreis for camerapeople. His film Escape from Ilovaisk was nominated for the best news report from a combat zone.

On 24 August 2024, while on a mission to Kramatorsk, he was heavily wounded in a Russian missile strike on the Sapphire hotel. He stayed in a coma for several months and he is undergoing rehabilitation right now.

Upon receiving his George Gongadze Prize, Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey said:

"It’s a great honor for me to receive such an award. I am very happy indeed. But I must say that you and I still have a lot of work to be done. Our idea is independent Ukraine. This award motivates me to never stop working."

Yevhen Hlibovytskyi, member of the Chapter, civic activist and director of the Frontier Institute, argued for the Chapter’s choice upon announcing Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey a Prize nominee:

"Ivan has a remarkable second name, it’s impossible to forget. We are not always capable of truly appreciating people whose job is to remain behind the camera – those who film, who edit, and who help us to understand. What I think is emblematic: this year’s nominee has not made it to the shortlist because he had been wounded, not because that damn missile fell on Kramatorsk. We love Victoria Amelina not for having become a victim. We love these people for what they have done. We love them for being who they are. We love them for what mark in history they have left.

It is incredibly important for me to see Ivan as this year’s Gongadze Prize nominee, to see him present here as a cameraman and journalist who have made numerous efforts for years to keep us updated and capable of understanding the world we live in. And it is incredibly important for me that he is present here as a man who keeps fighting and who is trying to get back to work despite his injury."

A Patrons’ Community ambassador and board member of the Prize, Presidents' MBA-13 alumnus, owner of the Termopal company, board member of the Ukrainian Association of Furniture Manufacturers, Mykola Viknianskyi said, upon presenting the statuette to the laureate:

"We, the KMBS alumni, consider it a great honor and privilege to contribute to this prize as patrons."

Apart from Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, the 2025 finalists are Olha Rudenko, co-founder and chief editor of The Kyiv Independent, and Mykhailo Tkach, investigative journalist and head of investigations at the Ukrainska Pravda.

Upon announcing Olha Rudenko a Prize nominee, Sevgil Musaieva, member of the Chapter and chief editor of the Ukrainska Pravda, said:

"Olha is all about value-based leadership and female leadership. And for me, this is of the utmost importance. Her leadership story has started neither from a victory nor from a defeat. It has started from Olha’s personal moment of saying "no" to censorship, to awkward silence, and to deals with devil."

Olha, who was nominated for the Prize for the second time in a row, said:

"Just a year ago, standing here on this very stage, I said that I was only here because three years ago, a group of brave and willful journalists ignored the advice of many wise people who recommended us to yield and launched The Kyiv Independent. Today I’m standing here because we are still brave and willful. Yet we have also proved to be very strong. It’s always dreadful and difficult to start a new path, but it’s even more difficult to keep up the good work."

Tetyana Troshchynska, the 2024 laureate of the Gongadze Prize, announced Mykhailo Tkach a Prize nominee:

"A job like Mykhailo’s is about pressure, surveillance, attacks and obstruction to journalist activities but never about fame and glory. It’s very difficult work. Preparing my speech for tonight, I thought that we now have a cohort of people for whom journalism is a part of their identity, a blood type, an integral part of their lives," she said.

In his own speech, Mykhailo Tkach mentioned:

"I’ve got no more personal ambitions since 24 February 2022. I no longer seek personal achievements. If our country does not prevail Russia, no personal achievements will matter. Nothing but victory is important to me.

As a citizen, as a journalist of the Ukrainska Pravda, as a human being who can raise funds or get vehicles for the armed forces, I try my best to be efficient now because this is my and my team’s greatest responsibility."

Oleksandra Matviichuk, human rights advocate and CEO of the Nobel Peace Prize winning Center for Civil Liberties, also spoke at the event:

"Since the very first days of the war in 2014, Russia has been attacking truth. This war exists in not only military but also information dimension because people’s mindset determines their deeds and decisions. This is why being a journalist at war is very dangerous. The list of journalists killed by Russian occupiers include those who died on the battlefield and those who lost their lives while performing their professional duties," she said.

The video in memoriam of the fallen media workers demonstrated at the event was prepared by the team of the Memory Platform.

The event was hosted by Andrii Dubchak, chief editor of the Frontliner media and the 2023 Prize laureate and Olha Snitsarchuk, journalist of the Radio Liberty and long-term host of the Gongadze Prize Ceremonies.

The George Gongadze Prize is an award for independent journalists established in 2019 by PEN Ukraine, the George Gongadze family, Kyiv-Mohyla Business School Alumni Association, Kyiv-Mohyla Business School and the Ukrainska Pravda media. The prize is awarded annually on the 21st of May, the birthday of George Gongadze.

The laureate of the George Gongadze Prize is selected by the Chapter consisting of 9 members. Only members of the Chapter may nominate candidates for the prize. This year’s Chapter of the Prize included Myroslava Gongadze, Volodymyr Yermolenko, Sevgil Musaieva, Diana Dutsyk, Thomas Brunner, Tetyana Troshchynska, Maksym Butkevych, Yevhen Hlibovytskyi, and Marcin Walecki.

The George Gongadze Prize is sponsored by patrons who ensure its sustainability and development. KMBS alumni exclusively, committed to the values of the Prize and changing Ukrainian society by the means of high-quality professional journalism, can be the Prize patrons.

The 2025 Prize patrons are Anton Artemenko, Thomas Brunner, Olha Velyka, Mykola Viknianskyi, Mykoa Demchenko, Maksym Diadyk, Lev Zhydenko, Dmytro Kazanin, Dmytro Kovalenko, Oksana Prosolenko, Mykola Sushko, Adam Kharlampovych.

The Ceremony was supported by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the Algorithm of Actions platform.

The 2025 information partners of the George Gongadze Prize Ceremony are Suspilne (general information partner), UP Club, Espreso, NV, Lviv Media Forum, Detector Media, the Institute of Mass Information, Mediamaker, Media Center Ukraine, Commission on Journalism Ethics, Frontliner.