Bohdan Nahaylo

Nahaylo is the son of Ukrainian wartime refugees and was born in the industrial town of Wolverhampton, England. He attended St. Chad’s College, a Catholic grammar school, then the University of Leeds, where he was taught by the historian David Dilks; in 1974–1975 he was a master’s student in modern European history at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He recalled that his father, aware of his interest in history and politics, kept urging him to go into journalism.⁠[1][1][1][1][1]

From 1975 he was a Ph.D. student at the London School of Economics and Political ScienceLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceThe London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a specialist social science university in central London, founded in 1895 by members of the Fabian Society. It is known for research in economics, politics and social policy, and its alumni and staff include many Nobel laureates and national leaders.Open the full entry, researching Ukrainian national assertiveness in the 1960s under the Ukrainian Communist Party leader Petro Shelest, with tutors including Peter Reddaway and Leonard Schapiro; during this period he translated the underground human rights journal A Chronicle of Current Events into English.⁠[1][1][1][1]

In 1978, on his tutor’s recommendation, Nahaylo was hired by Amnesty International to research, publicize and organize its work on behalf of all Soviet prisoners of conscience, later heading its Soviet Union unit; he also published articles in the London-based Index on Censorship about imprisoned Ukrainian writers.⁠[1][2][1]

In early 1980 Nahaylo’s first article, on the potential for an Islamic resurgence in Soviet Central Asia, was accepted by Christopher Hitchens, then foreign editor of the New Statesman. Over the following years, with the backing of editor Alexander Chancellor, he became a writer on Soviet affairs for The Spectator, publishing around 90 pieces; in 1983, on the 50th anniversary of the Holodomor, he interviewed Malcolm Muggeridge and wrote about the famine. He also wrote for The Times, The Observer, The Guardian and the European edition of The Wall Street Journal.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1]

In the 1980s Nahaylo went to work for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) in Munich for about ten years, mostly as a senior research analyst, writing hundreds of analytical pieces in English, and served as assistant director of research. Former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves recalled that the two had been colleagues as analysts in RFE/RL’s research department since 1984.⁠[1][3][4]

From 1989 to 1991 Nahaylo was director of Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian Service. In June 1990 he became the first Radio Liberty correspondent allowed into the Soviet Union and visited Ukraine for the first time; the following month he predicted live on CNNCNNCNN (Cable News Network) is an Atlanta-based news organization founded by Ted Turner on June 1, 1980, as the world’s first 24-hour television news channel. It has been owned in turn by Turner Broadcasting System, Time Warner, AT&T and Warner Bros. Discovery, became part of Skydance Corporation along with Warner Bros. Discovery in October 2026, and is one of the five networks that rotate in the White House television pool.Open the full entry that the collapse of the Soviet Union was inevitable; and in October he conducted an unvetted interview with Leonid Kravchuk, then chairman of the Soviet Ukrainian parliament. He built a network of reporters inside Ukraine, with the Kyiv bureau headed by the former political prisoner Serhii Naboka; on August 24, 1991, Radio Liberty was the first to broadcast the news that Ukraine had declared independence.⁠[4][1][1][1][1][1]

In 1990 Free Press in New York published Soviet Disunion: A History of the Nationalities Problem in the USSR, written by Nahaylo with Victor Swoboda, which analyzes the conflicting interests among the Soviet Union’s nationalities; he recalled that the book appeared in five editions—British, US, French, Italian and Japanese. Nancy Lubin in The New York Times Book Review called it “an excellent, comprehensive resource” on the events leading up to the Soviet nationality standoff, J. Arch Getty in the London Review of Books also praised it, while Geoffrey Morris in National Review found it fell short in its execution.⁠[3][3][1][3][3][3]

He recalled that Soviet Disunion led to a job with the United Nations. In 1994 Nahaylo was appointed senior policy adviser to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on the former Soviet region and its interface with the European Union, and later served as UNHCR’s representative in Belarus, Azerbaijan and Angola; in 2014–2015 he was chief of the UN Department of Political Affairs team in Ukraine. He said that while at the UN he could not publish as a journalist.⁠[1][4][4][1]

In 1999 the University of Toronto Press published Nahaylo’s The Ukrainian Resurgence, a 608-page account of Ukraine’s break from the Soviet Union and its declaration of statehood in 1991, including an account of the failed 1991 coup in Moscow. Taras Kuzio predicted in International Affairs that it would become an important source for scholars, journalists and policymakers; Sarah Birch in Europe-Asia Studies found that it did not engage the main scholarly debates but filled a gap in the English-language literature on contemporary Ukrainian history.⁠[5][3][3][3][3][3]

From May 2015 to December 2017 Nahaylo was country representative and international project adviser in Ukraine for the German international NGO Democracy Reporting International, and from January to May 2016 he was a visiting professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy. After leaving the UN he gradually returned to journalism and political commentary, contributing to the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert, Kyiv Post and The Ukrainian Weekly, writing a column for Ukraine International Airlines’ in-flight magazine Panorama, and hosting radio programs in Kyiv; in 2016 he interviewed the historian Timothy Snyder for Hromadske Radio.⁠[4][4][1][1][1]

When Kyiv Post owner Adnan KivanAdnan KivanAdnan Kivan (1962–2024) was a Syrian-born Ukrainian businessman and the founder of the Odesa real estate developer Kadorr Group; in March 2018 he bought the English-language outlet Kyiv Post from Mohammad Zahoor, becoming its third owner, and held it until his death in October 2024.Open the full entry suspended publication in November 2021, Nahaylo was deputy to chief editor Brian Bonner. He recalled in 2025 that the shutdown was triggered by a “mutiny” by a core of the newsroom who felt threatened by the owner’s plans to launch a Ukrainian edition and expand into video and podcasting, and that the departing staff raised funds for a new outlet on the basis of a “doctored” version of events. Former staff, by contrast, said the closure was the result of pressure from the owner, and that the conflict escalated after the announcement of the Ukrainian-language edition, which staff learned about from the news.⁠[1][1][1][6][7]

On December 24, 2021, Kyiv Post announced Nahaylo as acting chief editor, and he subsequently became chief editor. CEO Luc ChénierLuc ChénierLuc Chénier is a Canadian advertising and communications professional and entrepreneur long based in Kyiv, and the CEO of the Ukrainian English-language outlet Kyiv Post; he first ran the newspaper’s business from 2016 to 2018, returned as CEO after the November 2021 Kyiv Post shutdown controversy, and led its shift toward overseas readers as “Ukraine’s global voice.”Open the full entry said he had played a key role in rebuilding the editorial team and bringing in contributors such as Anders Åslund, Diane Francis, Pavlo Klimkin and Andrey Kurkov. Nahaylo recalled that he set about rebuilding the newspaper in an empty office and newsroom, and that Russia’s full-scale invasion two months later made the task all the more challenging.⁠[4][2][4][4][1][1]

He and Chénier divide editorial and business responsibilities: Chénier has said that Nahaylo handles the editorial side and he the business, and “we don’t mix those two things.” In 2023 Nahaylo represented Kyiv Post at Web Summit. When Adnan Kivan died in October 2024, Nahaylo signed the newsroom’s tribute.⁠[8][8][9]

On September 1, 2026, at the opening ceremony of the new academic year, the Institute of Journalism of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv presented Nahaylo with an award “for the contribution to the development of independent Ukrainian journalism and the dissemination of the truth about events in Ukraine and the world.” That August, for the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence, he wrote the series “35 Years of Independent Ukrainian Media.”⁠[10][10][10][2]

Kyiv Post: Official website: https://www.kyivpost.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[11]