On May 21, the Georgiy Gongadze Prize for 2026 was awarded to Olga Rudensko, the editor-in-chief and co-founder of The Kyiv Independent, and Mykhailo Tkach, head of the investigative department at Ukrainska Pravda. The ceremony took place in Kyiv, coinciding with what would have been Gongadze’s birthday.
This year’s shortlist also featured Marian Kushnir, a journalist and war correspondent for Radio Svoboda. Rudensko has been a finalist for the award three times, while this marks Tkach’s second nomination.
Olga Rudensko has made significant contributions to various international publications throughout her career. In May 2022, she was featured on the cover of Time magazine and received the Women of Europe award in December. In 2025, she was honored with the Freedom Fighter Award from the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington for her steadfast commitment to independent journalism during the Russian invasion.
Mykhailo Tkach has played a crucial role in investigative journalism, with his reports often prompting public discourse and official inquiries. Before joining Ukrainska Pravda, he spent six years working on the investigative program ‘Schemes: Corruption in Detail,’ a collaboration between Radio Svoboda and UA:Pershyi channel, and five years with the ‘Money’ investigative program on 1+1 channel.
Tkach has been awarded the Order of Merit III class for his contributions to journalism and for covering events during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Georgiy Gongadze Prize, established in 2019 by the Ukrainian PEN in partnership with the KMBs Alumni Association, the Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, and Ukrainska Pravda, recognizes independent journalists. Only members of the Prize’s Chapter can nominate candidates and select the laureate, who receives a statuette and a cash award of 200,000 UAH.
Past laureates include Vakhтанг Kipiani (2019), Pavlo Kazarin (2020), Myroslava Barchuk (2021), Mstyslav Chernov and Yevhen Malolyetka (2022), Bohdan Lohvynenko (2023), Tetiana Troshchynska (2024), and Ivan Lyubish-Kirdey (2025). In 2022, the Special Award was posthumously given to photojournalist Max Levin.
Olga Rudensko and Mykhailo Tkach have been honored with the 2026 Georgiy Gongadze Prize for their exceptional contributions to journalism in Ukraine. The award ceremony took place in Kyiv, recognizing their commitment to independent reporting amid ongoing challenges.