Illia Ponomarenko, the Kyiv Post’s security and defense beat reporter since January 2017, has been chosen by the Alfred Friendly Press Partners program as one of the international fellows. The designation means he will work at a Washington, D.C., news outlet that covers defense and security issues and study at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri, during the six-month program.
But first, the Kyiv Post needs to cover half of the $40,000 in costs for the program. An anonymous businessperson in Kansas City, Missouri, has donated half of the amount. The Kyiv Post is seeking to raise the other $20,000. It aims to raise $10,000 through a GoFundMe campaign and the other $10,000 from another donor in a campaign led by the five previous Kyiv Post Friendly fellows.
The program was started by Alfred Friendly (1911–1983), a Pulitzer-Prize winning Washington Post journalist who was the newspaper’s managing editor from 1955 to 1965.
The Kyiv Post’s five previous fellows were: Anna Yakutenko in 2018, Yuliana Romanyshyn in 2017; Olena Goncharova in 2016, Oksana Grytsenko in 2015 and Anastasia Forina in 2014. Yakutenko worked for KCUR-FM, the flagship National Public Radio station in the Kansas City metropolitan area and a service of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Goncharova and Grytsenko worked at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, while Romanyshyn and Forina worked for the Chicago Tribune.
Ponomarenko will be based in Washington, D.C., after his training at the Missouri School of Journalism. The news outlet still has not been decided yet. The program runs from March through September.
Ponomarenko covers national security issues as well as military technologies, production, and defense reforms in Ukraine. He has extensively covered the war zone of Donbas since Russia’s invasion in 2014. He has also reported from the Middle East, specifically the Palestinian Autonomy, the Golan Heights, and Jerusalem. He has also covered the participation of Ukrainian soldiers in a United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Congo in central Africa. He graduated from Mariupol State University in 2015, with a specialist degree in international relations and foreign policy.
“There’s no way to be constantly improving other than to see something better, how things should be done,” Ponomarenko said of his reasons for seeking the Alfred Friendly fellowship.
Illia Ponomarenko is the 6th Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship winner. He will work six months for an American news outlet and study at the Missouri School of Journalism in Columbia, Missouri, during the six-month program in 2020.
Read about previous winners here:
Anna Yakutenko – 2018
5th Kyiv Post journalist wins Alfred Friendly fellowship
Kyiv Post’s Yakutenko enjoying US fellowship
Yuliana Romanyshyn – 2017
Kyiv Post journalist wins fellowship
Olena Goncharova – 2016
Kyiv Post’s Goncharova wins fellowship to work at American newspaper
Oksana Grytsenko – 2015
Anastasia Forina – 2014
