Ivan Lyubish-Krardeus became the laureate of the Gongadze-2025 Prize

Ivan Lyubish-Kirdi became a laureate of the George Gongadze-2025 Prize

George Gongadze Prize

This year’s laureate of the George Gongadze Journalist Prize was Ivan Lyubish-Kirday, a photographer and military correspondent of Reuters.

« It is a great honor for me to receive such a reward. I am incredibly glad, but I have to tell you what is ahead and I have a lot of work. Idea is an independent Ukraine. This reward gives me motivation to work further », «  He said during the award. « 

In August 2024, during a business trip to Kramatorsk, Ivan was seriously injured – he was at the Sapphire Hotel, on which the Russians They struck.

Foreign journalists were also injured as a result of the attack. Due to the injury, Ivan fell into a coma.

In early October 2024, a photographer returned to consciousness and spoke.

« We do not always know how to evaluate those who shoot, edit, help to understand – those who are behind the scenes. It seems terribly symbolic: this year’s nominee becomes a person who is in the finale not because it is not because this damn rocket has arrived in Kramatorsk.

We love Victoria Amelin not because she was a victim. We love these people for what they did. For who they are. For what they should have left, ” – said a member of the capitula, public figure, journalist, director of the Institute of Frontir Yevgeny Glibovitsky.

Among the premium applicants were also Olga Rudenko, Head of the Ukrainian Truth Investigation Investigation Department of Ukrainian Truth.

Mikhail Tkach, Olga Rudenko and Ivan Lyubish-Kirday while awarding the award

The nominees were evaluated by the following criteria:

• dedication to the principles and values ​​of independent journalism;

• innovation;

• significant contribution to the development of a separate genre or media in general;

• Creating materials that have led to a solution or understanding of certain problems in society and changes in the country.

The George Gongadze Prize is one of the main honors for professional journalists in Ukraine, which was founded in partnership with Georgy Gongadze’s family in 2019.

Recall that in 2024 the prize laureate became Director of the Department of Strategic Analysis and Development of Socially Influential Content on Tatiana Troshchinskaya.

In previous years, Kipiani (2019), Pavel Kazarin (2020), Myroslav Barchuk (2021), Mstislav Chernov and Yevgeny Maloletka (2022) and Bogdan Logvinenko (2023) were received in previous years.

In 2022, the Prize introduced a special distinction, which was posthumously received by the documentary and photographic reporter Max Levin.