Powered by Ukraine’s presidential and parliamentary elections, as well as the nation’s prominent role in U.S. President Donald Trump’s impeachment, the Kyiv Post nearly 9 million pageviews in 2019 — 2.4 million higher than in 2018, according to statistics from Google Analytics. The number of pageviews is still off considerably from the record 65 million, set in 2014. That’s international attention was riveted on Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution that ousted Kremlin-backed President Viktor Yanukovych and the start of Russia’s retaliatory war against Ukraine that continues today.
The Kyiv Post is the first and one of the few Ukrainian news website to start a paywall, common in Europe and the United States, charging $45 yearly for access to all stories and materials online. The Kyiv Post has currently more than 1,600 online subscribers but is aiming for 2,500 subscribers in its 25th year in 2020.
Here are the top 20 most-read stories on www.kyivpost.com in 2019:
No. 1 – US Army 101st Airborne soldiers deploy to Ukraine
https://archive.kyivpost.com/ukraine-politics/us-army-101st-airborne-soldiers-deploy-to-ukraine.html
Ukrainian photographer Sasha Samsonova has shot U.S. media personality and mogul Kylie Jenner for the cover of the erotic magazine Playboy coming out on Sept. 17. (Instagram/Kylie Jenner)
No. 3 – Leaked memo shows prosecutors accuse Biden of getting ‘unlawful benefit’
Ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani introduces then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at a rally on Aug. 18, 2016, in Charlotte, North Carolina. (AFP)
No. 5 – Sergii Leshchenko: Republicans keep lying about me at impeachment hearings
Ukrainian journalist and then-member of parliament Sergii Leshchenko holds pages showing alleged payments to Donald Trump’s then-presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort from a secret ledger of the political party of ex- Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Aug. 19, 2016. The ledger contains handwritten notes of $2 billion in bribes or under-the-table payments. The investigation stalled, but Leshchenko’s role in publicizing the ledgers after a New York Times story has been seized upon by Republican members of Congress as proof of a Ukrainian conspiracy to defeat Trump in the 2016 presidential election. (AFP)
No. 6 – Ukraine agrees to ‘Steinmeier Formula’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gestures during a news conference on Oct. 1, 2019, in Kyiv. The Ukrainian leader made a statement to brief the press regarding the just-approved ultimate edition of the so-called Steinmeier Formula regulating possible local elections in Russian-occupied Donbas as part of the Minsk peace settlement. (Volodymyr Petrov)
No. 7 – Sergii Leshchenko: The true story of Yanukovych’s black ledger
President Trump’s one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort arrives at Manhattan Supreme Court on June 27, 2019, for his arraignment on fraud charges. He is serving a 7.5 year prison sentence for his fraud and tax evasion conviction. (AFP).
No. 8 – With 99% counted, Zelensky gets 30%, Poroshenko just under 16%
Ukrainian comic actor showman and presidential frontrunner Volodymyr Zelensky (C) delivers a speech after the first exit poll results at his campaign headquarters in Kyiv on March 31, 2019. He won the first round of voting and went on to defeat President Petro Poroshenko in the second round of voting on April 21, 2019, with 73 percent of the vote. (AFP).
No. 9 – Trump’s attorney Giuliani collects more dirt on visit to Kyiv
Rudy Giuliani, U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s personal lawyer, on Sept. 24, 2019. Giuliani has embraced former Ukrainian prosecutors with reputations for corruption in seeking to make baseless conspiracy claims to promote Trump’s re-election in 2020. The New York Times reports that the ex-New York City mayor was in Kyiv on Dec. 4. (AFP)
No. 10 – PayPal doesn’t work in Ukraine, but resourceful locals know how to use it
The convenient internet-based money transfer service PayPal is popular in the West, yet the service doesn’t fully operate in Ukraine. Ukrainians can use the service to send funds to other PayPal users but they can’t receive money — a major obstacle for those trading on online market platforms such as eBay, Etsy, where PayPal might be the only payment option. (Kostyantyn Chernichkin)
No. 11 – Chornobyl ‘liquidator’ kills himself after watching TV series about disaster – Askold Krushelnycky
Chornobyl widows carry portraits of their dead husbands, victims of the consequences of the Chornobyl disaster, during a tribute ceremony at the Chornobyl Memorial in Kyiv on April 26, 2019. (Oleg Petrasiuk)
No. 12 – Alexandra Chalupa: The Ukrainian-American who exposed Manafort – Askold Krushelnycky
Alexandra Chalupa has been credited with getting Paul Manafort fired when he was managing Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign by helping to publicize his work for Kremlin-backed ex-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, overthrown by the EuroMaidan Revolution in 2014. (Courtesy)
No. 13 – ‘We will go to kill Ukrainians as soon as our war will be over,’ Assad’s army fighters say in Syria
A handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on June 30, 2018, shows Syrian government soldiers riding on a tank in the town of Western Ghariyah, about 15 kilometers east of the southern embattled city of Daraa. (AFP)
No. 14 – Publication of Manafort payments violated law, interfered in US election, Kyiv court rules
From left, Sergii Leshchenko, Svitlana Zalishchuk, and Mustafa Nayyem participate in a parliament session, on April 4, 2017.No. 15 – Kyiv not Kiev: US changes spelling of Ukrainian capital
No. 16 – Female warlord defects to Ukraine, details Russia’s involvement in Donbas
Svitlana Driuk, a notorious female warlord fighting against Ukraine with Russian-led forces and celebrity of Russian war propaganda, defected to the Ukrainian side a while ago, aided by Ukrainian intelligence.
No. 17 – Foreign students in Ukraine attracted by affordable education
Centre for Language Development teacher Anna Levchuk explains Ukrainian grammar and vocabulary to her students. ( Volodymyr Petrov).
No. 18 – Rammstein rock band use video footage of Ukrainian city for new album teaser (VIDEO) – Illia Ponomarenko
Til Lindemann of German rock bank Rammstein performs onstage during heavy metal Wacken Open Air (WOA) Festival 2013 in Wacken, northern Germany on Aug. 1, 2013.
No. 19 – Kharkiv drivers get 10 years in prison for the accident that killed 6 people – Toma Istomina
Olena Zaitseva and Hennadiy Dronov, involved in a car accident that killed six people, listen to the court’s verdict sentencing them to 10 years in prison at the Kyiv District Court of Kharkiv on Feb. 26, 2019. (UNIAN) (source)
No. 20 – Yanukovych’s security chief returns to Ukraine, meets Zelensky – Oleg Sukhov
Valery Khoroshkovsky headed the Security Service of Ukraine under ex-President Viktor Yanukovych. (kmu.gov.ua)
