The fight for full press freedom in Ukraine: ‘We can write what we want, but bad actors try to intimidate us’

Olga Rudenko: ‘A lot of newsrooms started feeling pressure at a time when some people began to think there might be elections.’ Photograph: Girts Ragelis

For Olga Rudenko, the editor of the Kyiv Independent, journalism is not just a profession but a moral imperative. “Our soldiers in the frontline are fighting for Ukraine to define its own future,” she says. “They are fighting for Ukraine not to be Russia; Russia is associated with no freedom of speech, no freedom of media, no freedom whatever.

“If they are dying, we should be using those rights.”