The voices of the protagonists of the European Press Prize 2023

On June 9, from the Marjanishvili Theatre in Tbilisi, during the ZEG Storytelling Festival, we celebrated the best European journalism, with our 11th Award Ceremony. It was an important and emotional event, and we collected the thoughts of some of our Winners, and of the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Georgia, Maaike van Koldam. Scroll down to watch the interviews we realised, and hear the inspiring things they told us.

Alexander Nabert, Winner of the Investigative Reporting Award

Death Weapons: Inside a Teenage Terrorist Network, the investigation he worked on with Christina Brause, Bryan Bender and Nick Robyns-Early, revealed the existence of a network of young neo-Nazis busy with setting up terrorist cells across Europe and the US with the aim of carrying out armed attacks.

Anna Myroniuk (The Kyiv Independent), Winner of the Special Award

In the investigation Suicide missions, abuse, physical threats: International Legion fighters speak out against leadership’s misconduct, Anna Myroniuk and Alexander Khrebet expose leadership misconduct in the International Legion, the military formation for foreigners, created under the initiative of President Volodymyr Zelensky in the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

César Dezfuli and Maartje Bakker (De Volkskrant), Winners of the Migration Journalism Award

The long road to a home in Europe is a journey through the lives of 8 migrants, part of a group of 118 men who arrived in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean. Where did they go after their rescue? And how do they live now?

Juliette Garside (The Guardian) and Antonio Baquero (OCCRP), Winners of the Innovation Award

Russian Asset Tracker is a collaborative project led by OCCRP and The Guardian. In the wake of Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine, governments around the world imposed sanctions on many of Putin’s enablers. The authors of this investigation tracked down as many of these assets as possible, and compiled them in the Russian Asset Tracker database for the public to see and use.

Maaike van Koldam, Ambassador of The Netherlands to Georgia