Eastern Europe
SERGIU CULEAC, Moldova, has worked for Moldova’s Radio Nova, freelanced for the BBC’s Romanian Service, and worked for TV channel Moldova 1 as a moderator and presenter, gaining experience in editing, writing, translating news reports, and preparing interviews. He started his career in journalism at Radio Moldova, where he helped produce programs for children. He is a graduate of the Faculty of Journalism at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He speaks Romanian, English, and Russian, and has a good command of French.
ANASTASIIA MAGAZOVA, Ukraine, is currently the author of the journalistic project #UnrecognizedStories, which explores the stories of people living in territories that are not officially recognized, but which, like South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, Transnistria in Moldova, and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, were declared after the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. She began her career in journalism as a web editor for the information portal www.start.crimea.ua, before joining Deutsche Welle in Ukraine as a freelancer and later as a multimedia editor at the international broadcaster’s headquarters in Bonn. She speaks Ukrainian, Russian, English, and German.
ARTSIOM MARTYNOVICH, Belarus, works as a columnist for the independent Belarus network BelaPAN. After getting a start in journalism in 2008, he worked from 2010 - 2018 as a special correspondent for Euroradio in Minsk with a focus on the subject of education. He graduated from the Belarusian Pedagogical University in 2010, where he studied History and Foreign Languages. He speaks Belarusian, Russian, English, and French.
NAIRA NALBANDYAN, Armenia, works for Armenia’s PARA TV as a journalist and general producer. She began her career in journalism as a translator for entertainment websites before spending four years at Gala TV as a journalist and news coordinator. She is a graduate of the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia, majoring in Political Management and Analysis. She speaks Armenian, English, and Russian.
VIOLETTA SAVCHITS, Belarus, has worked as an editor for 34mag.net, and as a photojournalist for the independent Belsat channel and Belarus’s largest independent webiste TUT.By. She is a graduate of the Faculty of International Relations at Belarus State University, where she attended many professional training sessions, including on fact-checking from the U.K. investigative team Bellingcat and from Journalists for Tolerance in Lviv. She speaks Belarusian, Russian, and English.
Western Balkans
NEVENA BOGDANOVIC, Serbia, is currently working as a free-lance journalist in Serbia. She began her career in journalism working for Radio-Televison of Vojvodina, where she reported news from the field. She also reported stories for the TV show RADAR and wrote for the website Fake News Tragac, which deconstructs Serbian media reporting and fights against media propaganda. She is a graduate of the University of Novij Sad in Journalism. She speaks Serbian, English, and Spanish.
FATLUM JASHARI, Kosovo, has pursued his career in journalism at Kosovo’s Kohavision-KTV, covering local events in Pristina, interviewing local personalities, and reporting live. He covered Kosovo’s high-profile early assembly elections in 2017 and local elections that same year. He is a graduate of the University of Pristina, Faculty of Philology, Department of Journalism. He speaks Albanian and English.
AMIR PURIC, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is a correspondent for the international broadcaster Deutsche Welle in Bosnia and Herzegovina, having previously served as chief editor of the youth magazine Kar!ke. He has a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Faculty of Political Sciences at the University of Banja Luka, and a Master’s in Democracy and Human Rights from the University of Sarajevo and Bologna. He speaks Bosnian, English, and Italian.