In the first days following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Public Interest Journalism Lab co-founded The Reckoning Project, an initiative of Ukrainian and international reporters, lawyers, and analysts to document alleged war crimes in all the regions of Ukraine. Since then, they have collected evidence of the shelling of civilians during evacuation, their abduction, torture, and execution, as well as collected evidence of Russia’s deliberate attacks on hospitals, maternity wards, train stations, and residential areas. How to document every tragedy in a way that nobody will ever be able to deny they occurred? How do we reunite truth with justice? And how are Ukrainians resisting?

Gumenyuk will show that a decade of democratization and reforms in Ukraine strengthened the country and was pivotal for its resilience. Ukrainians are fighting not only against a foreign invasion but for their chosen way of life based on the rule of law, pluralism, and freedom. Reporting from various regions of Ukraine, Gumenyuk traces the war’s development and captures how the foundational principles of democracy and political freedom are making Ukrainian defense possible.

Nataliya Gumenyuk is a prominent Ukrainian journalist and author specializing in conflict reporting. She is the founder and CEO of the Public Interest Journalism Lab (PIJL) which promotes constructive discussion around complex social issues. After the full-scale Russian invasion, Gumenyuk pivoted to frontline media reporting and with her team co-founded The Reckoning Project: Ukraine Testifies, which documents war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russia.

In 2023 under Gumenyuk's leadership within the Connecting The Continentsinitiative, PIJL brought to Ukraine senior editors, public intellectuals, and journalists from Latin America, Africa, and Asia.

As a foreign news correspondent, she has reported from over 50 countries. She has been reporting on the invasion of Crimea since 2014, as well as on the conflict in Eastern Ukraine. She regularly writes for Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post, She also contributes to Rolling Stone, Die Zeit, and Vanity Fair, and provides commentary for CNN, MSNBC, Sky News, Radio Monocle 24, and other media outlets..

Gumenyuk is the author of several documentaries and books, including The Lost Island: Tales From The Occupied Crimea (2020) and The Maidan Tahrir — on the development after the Arab Spring — as well as co-author of The Scariest Days of My Life. The Dispatches of the Reckoning Project.

Gumenyuk was the co-founder and head of independent Ukrainian Hromadske TV and Hromadske International, and is currently a Board member.

She is the recipient of the 2022 Media Freedom Award and 2022 NED Democracy Award, as well as the 2023 Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Prize

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.