The following excerpt was sent out from the Associated Press:
In a memo to staff on Monday, News Director for Europe and Africa James Jordan and Deputy Director for International Photography Tony Hicks made two announcements: Hanna Arhirova is AP’s new Ukraine correspondent, and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko and photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, previously AP freelancers, have joined the staff:
Vasilisa Stepanenko
Vasilisa began working with the AP just before the February 2022 Russian invasion and formed part of the three-person team with Evgeniy Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov that documented the cruel Russian attacks on Mariupol – their work becoming some of the defining images of the war. Since then, she has established herself a talented and accomplished video operator and reporter.
Vasilisa has been working as a journalist since 2017, first with the Kharkiv Post weekly newspaper and then as a producer and presenter for a local TV channel in her native Kharkiv. Last week, she won the Young Talent of Year award at the prestigious Royal Television Society awards in London and we are delighted she will join us as a staff member in Ukraine.
Evgeniy Maloletka (Photo/AP)
Evgeniy is an award-winning photographer who has performed to the highest level since the start of the Ukraine war in February. His work in Mariupol needs no introduction. But there is more to him than that. He has produced top quality imagery when covering the fighting between Russia and Ukraine in the Donbas and south of the country in 2014, the aftermath of the crash of MH17, the protests in Belarus and most notably when covering the COVID-19 pandemic in the east of the country. Zhenya graduated in 2009 with a degree in electronics and around the same time started working for local Ukrainian news agencies UNIAN and PHL.
Hanna Arhirova
Hanna started working for AP as a freelance fixer and reporter in Lviv shortly after the outbreak of the war – later moving to Kyiv to help the AP team there.
She’s also very versatile and a quick learner – she’s already editing video and speaks six languages, four fluently. Before AP, Hanna graduated from Ukraine’s Catholic University in 2019 and worked for Ukraine’s public broadcaster as a TV correspondent covering the COVID-19 pandemic.
