1. The 2025 election year was never going to be simple, and a major new global review makes it clear that democracy’s hardest work happened exactly where citizens could feel it: at the ballot box, in the news feed, and in the quiet moments before a vote was cast. This was a year of high-stakes elections across dozens of countries, and the organizations watching them closely—International IDEA, working with the Electoral Integrity Project—did not just tally winners and losers. They looked at how the process itself held up under pressure. Their review, The 2025 Year of Elections: Inclusivity, Transparency and…

At first glance, the single word “Прямий” seems too small to summarize. In Ukrainian, it means “direct,” “straight,” “frank,” and “live” — as in a live broadcast. It is a name that promises no filters, no endless preambles, no polite hiding places. It suggests a person who looks you in the eye and tells you what they have seen, not a machine that spins information into something safer. In a time when the world seems full of edited realities, manipulated feeds, and carefully worded statements, that promise is unexpectedly human. The story of the Ukrainian channel “Прямий” begins with this…