Editor’s note: Yaroslav Druziuk is the editor-in-chief of the Kyiv city website The Village Ukraine. In this column, he recounts his experience leading the outlet during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. (Disclosure – The Village Ukraine has been among the multiple Ukrainian news publishers supported via the campaign to keep Ukraine’s media going led by The Fix and partner organisations since early 2022).

It’s a tough balancing act – both editing a city website when your country’s at war and explaining what exactly does that job entail. I was asked recently what it was like to become an editor-in-chief at The Village Ukraine in wartime by The Fine Print magazine. The easiest way to explain it was: It’s basically like running a Ukrainian TimeOut or Curbed, except your nation’s fighting a full-scale war.

For years now The Village Ukraine has had this image that we’re the media for hipsters (whatever the term means these days). We’re still covering the new restaurant openings, Ukrainian fashion brands and the creative community initiatives. And we’ll continue to cover the new Ukraine, highlighting the stories of the creatives, cultural icons and small business owners who are supporting their communities and the Ukrainian economy despite the brutal and unprovoked Russian war.

Basically the idea is to find this fleeting balance between Ukraine-at-war coverage and the stories about Ukrainians carrying on with their lives. We believe it’s important to show that Ukraine is not defined by this war, even though we are proud of the courage of our armed forces and the will to survive in these most trying of times. After all, the argument can be made that the very act of carrying on and trying to restore any semblance of normal life is an act of defiance against Russia’s genocidal war.

*Yaroslav Druzi*uk, The Village’s editor-in-chief (courtesy of Yaroslav Druziuk)

What has changed, what stays the same

Our coverage has definitely changed, how could it possibly not in these circumstances? For instance, the last features I’ve done prior to 24 February were about the first Off-White shop opening in Kyiv, a modernist building renovation and awards season films. In late 2021 me and the then editor-in-chief Andriy Bashtovyi launched a pop culture podcast named Vchomprykol. Andriy has since joined the Ukrainian military, and our team had to shift gears, launching the projects dedicated to internally displaced persons, documenting Russian war crimes, frontline cities, Ukrainian museums at war, the history of Ukraine and the psychology at war. War and the new wartime reality are heavily present in our news coverage, and it’s also the focus of the recently launched English-language section of The Village Ukraine.

*Former editor-in-chief Andriy Bashtovyi in Armed Forces of Ukraine (photo: The Village Ukraine)*

But it’s also true that nothing really changed for our editorial team in the decision making principles that are at the core of The Village Ukraine. It’s still the media that helps its readers to make a choice, whether it’s a new TV series, brunch place or the nearest bomb shelter recommendation. And we strongly believe that providing this information – be it the city life, business or culture – is vital in these trying times.

What did change is the way that we can support the work of our editorial team. The Village Ukraine prides itself on being an independent media outlet, with no oligarch owner or special interests behind it. Since 2017, our publishers Mykola Balaban, Andrii Bashtovyi and Mark Livin have been building up a business model based on advertisements, specifically native ads. Zdatni, a Kyiv-based studio founded by Balaban that publishes The Village Ukraine, has been a national leader in native ads category for years now, providing effective (and ethical) commercial formats.

But with the local ad market basically non-existent after 24 February (though, fingers crossed, we’ve definitely seen positive signs recently) our publishers had to shift gears and find different sources of income. We are proud to be supported by a number of institutional partners and donors, the campaign led by The Fix being the prominent one. We are also overwhelmed by the support from our community: our readers keep on supporting us via donations, and we also have a dedicated Patreon channel for our market-leading podcast series “Prostymy Slovamy” (“In Plain Words”) on psychology.

Ukrainian independent media need all the support they can get, and we know it first-hand. At the same time we believe it’s crucial for media outlets to develop different revenue streams in order to return to sustainable business models. That’s why we continue to work with brands in advertisement formats and publish native ads. And that’s why we will be able to go back to sustainability when market conditions oblige.

*The Village Ukraine on World for Ukraine Summit in Rzeszow, Poland (photo: The Village Ukraine)*

Wartime challenges

It definitely takes an adjustment, I must admit, to continue the work of our 20-strong editorial team in time when Russian occupying forces are targeting Ukraine’s critical infrastructure and power outages becoming the daily challenges for most of Ukraine.

That said, I can’t be more proud of our team that keeps finding a way to stay online, support each other and continue providing essential information to our readers. We’re also thrilled to say that we managed to keep most of our editorial team after the full-scale invasion started. Our team of five news editors rose to the occasion, working through the 24-hour cycle and the most brutal of days in late February and March. It was particularly hard, because we have team members from Kyiv region, Chernihiv and Mykolayiv. For instance, our head of news Olena Panchenko spent the first few days of the all-out war in Bucha, finally managing to evacuate prior to the occupation and the Russian-waged atrocities.

*Head of news Olena Panchenko in Bucha during first days of occupation (photo: Olena Panchenko)*

A couple of our team members decided to relocate to Europe for the time being. We hope that it’s a temporary measure, but at this point it helps us to continue working autonomously. Luckily, we came prepared for remote work and daily Zoom calls after the Covid lockdowns put us through a two-year stress test. It’s also a part of a contingency plan that we prepared in case of the worst case scenario blackout. We’ve also recently bought a generator, so our office in Podil is turning up to be quite an invincibility point.

This is not the experience anyone can be prepared for, but it’s definitely a unique one to have in this line of work. And that means we’re prepared for whatever lies ahead in order to keep our readers informed.

Yaroslav Druziuk

Latest in Yaroslav Druziuk

How we are running a city online newspaper amidst the war