Heorhiy Shabayev

Heorhiy Shabayev was selected for the 2023 Shortlist with Ukrainian Supreme Court Judge with Russian Citizenship.

Heorhiy Shabayev, 26, is a journalist with Schemes (Skhemy), an investigative news project run by RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service. He is a graduate of the Institute of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and the author of a dozen investigations into corruption in the government, the construction industry, and in large state-owned enterprises.

After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, he focused on the identification of Russian war criminals and the methods by which Russia tries to circumvent US and European Union sanctions. He was the first to report on Russia’s destruction of the world’s largest AN-225 Mriya aircraft at the Gostomel airfield in the Kyiv region. Also, he was the first to report the death of a Russian midshipman on the cruiser Moskva in April 2022, which was widely reported by the world media.

In 2021 he entered the list of 30 journalists under 30 years old who are creating the future of Ukrainian media according to the Heorhiy Gongadze award. Shabayev lives and works in Kyiv.