Yuriy Lukanov

Yuriy Lukanov is a Ukrainian journalist from Kyiv, Ukraine. Не has been a journalist for over four decades during which he has published thousands of articles, investigative reports, and human rights investigations in Ukrainian and international media, including United Press International, The Financial Times, and The Atlantic Council of the US. In 1992, Yuriy Lukanov completed a National Forum Foundation internship in the United States. In 1993 he was a journalist at Radio Canada International in Montreal. He reported on the 1986 accident at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia, the 2009 riots and the burning of parliament in Moldova, the 2010 Moscow metro terrorist attacks, and many others. He covered the violent disturbances during the 2013-2014 Euromaidan Revolution in Kyiv and since 2014, the annexation of Crimea and Russian-Ukrainian war. Yuriy Lukanov has published three political collections of satirical poems. He is the author of several screenplays and books for documentaries. One of these was translated into English – The Press:how Russian destroyed media freedom in Crimea. He is also an short stories and novel writer, some of which have been published in the Ukrainian media. Russia’s war against Ukraine had a profound effect on him leading to the publication of a novel entitled Reporter Volkovsky describing a journalist at work and the challenges he faces during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Yuriy Lukanov believes Vladimir Putin is waging a war against Ukraine with the goal of reviving the Russian empire. He believes reconciliation with Putin’s Russia is impossible because if Ukraine is defeated the Kremlin will wipe his country from the face of Europe and Ukrainian national identity will be destroyed and replaced by Little Russians. Putin’s goal makes Yuriy Lukanov uncomfortable because his family suffered terribly during Soviet rule of Ukraine. Yuriy’s grandfather, Pavlo Lukanov, was murdered by the Stalinist regime in 1937. His wife Olha Volkovska, Yuri’s grandmother, was sentenced to 8 years and imprisoned in the Siberian Gulag and returned to live in Ukraine suffering from schizophrenia. Yuriy Lukanov’s great-grandmother Maria Tytarenko lost four of her six children and her husband Levontiy during the Holodomor (Terror Famine) which murdered five million Ukrainians in 1933.