‘Russia can kill our journalists, but it can’t kill the truth.’

Ukrainian journalist Maria Romanenko on the killing of her former colleagues and her efforts to help refugees and raise awareness of the war’s brutal toll.

The grave of Maks Levin (1981-2022), Ukrainian photojournalist murdered by Russian troops on March 13, 2022. Photo by Maria Romanenko, taken March 11, 2025, at the Boyarka Town Cemetery, Boyarka, Fastiv Raion, Kyivska, Ukraine.

By Michael Judge

I’d been meaning to reach out to Maria Romanenko, the former editor-in-chief of the English-language department of Hromadske, an independent Ukrainian news organization, for months before we finally spoke. Just 33 years old, Romanenko’s seen more of the good and evil in this world than most folks twice her age. She and her partner, Jeremy “Jez” Meyers, fled Ukraine in the early days of the full-scale Russian invasion over fears she had been put on a Russian “kill list.” As the BBC reported at the time, “It took them 40 hours by car and by foot to get to Poland, before flying to Manchester after Ms Romanenko’s visa was waived.” Tragically, three of Romanenko’s former colleagues at Hromadske have since been killed—two after being horrifically tortu…