Vasilisa Stepanenko is a journalist, producer.
Place of Birth, Education
She was born on November 19, 1999 in Kharkiv.
She was educated at the Kharkiv State Academy of Culture.
Career
Stepanenko worked as a reporter for the Kharkiv Post newspaper for a year, and then for another 3 years at the Simon TV channel.
In January 2022, she began working with the Associated Press (AP). After the start of the full-scale invasion of Russia, she worked in Mariupol together with Yevhen Maloletka and Mstyslav Chernov, covering events in the city.
On May 8, 2023, the AP team received the Pulitzer Prize for service to society.
In the same year, Stepanenko was included in the UP-100 list and the “30 under 30: creators of the future” rating from Forbes Ukraine. In 2024, she was also included in the European Forbes “30 under 30” list in the “Media and Marketing” category.
In particular, Stepanenko, as a producer of the documentary “20 Days in Mariupol”, took part in the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles with her team.
The film won the award in the category “Best Documentary Feature Film”. Chernov, Maloletka, Rainy Aronson-Rath and Michelle Mizner also worked on it.
During her career, Stepanenko has received a number of Ukrainian and international journalistic awards. Among them, for example, the 2023 Pulitzer Prize and the 2024 Taras Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.
She was also awarded the George Polk, Anthony Shadid, Livingston Prizes and other awards.
