REEES alumnus Terrell Jermaine Starr has been reporting on the war in Ukraine from Kyiv. Starr travelled to Ukraine to work on a tourism business and started covering the Russian invasion. He has appeared on CNN and MSNBC, providing information, interviews, insight, and video footage of what is happening in Kyiv.

Starr will be visiting the University of Illinois campus April 19-20, 2022 and taking part in a Q&A session at 7:30 p.m. CDT on Tuesday, April 19 at the Campus Instructional Facility Auditorium (1405 Springfield Ave., Urbana, IL 61801). Virtual participation over Zoom is also possible. 

Starr is the host and founder of the foreign-policy podcast Black Diplomats. He is also a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center. Starr is a University of Illinois alumnus, graduating with a REEES M.A. and an M.S. in Journalism in 2009. During his time as a graduate student at the university, he held FLAS fellowships from REEEC and CGS. He later held a Fulbright scholarship for Ukraine. Please visit the REEEC Master Calendar for more information on this event, or click here to register for the Zoom webinar.

You can follow Starr's work on his personal Twitter account. More local media coverage of Starr’s experience in Ukraine can be found here.

You can support his work in Ukraine through CashApp, Venmo, or PayPal.