Katie Livingstone awarded prize by Military Reporters & Editors
WASHINGTON — During its annual conference for journalists who cover the military, Military Reporters & Editors presented awards to winners of its 2025 MRE Journalism Contest. Katie Livingstone garners MRE’s Best Photojournalism award for visual media.
Award Summary
Photograph: Dead Serious: Ukrainian Soldiers Watch Eastern Frontline in Pokrovsk Command Center, Kyiv Post published 5/12/2025
Prize Category: Best Photojournalism, Visual journalism media published in traditional print or online.
Best photography on a single topic related to the military, defense or veterans news or war coverage.
Judges’ Comments:
The cutline reads “Soldiers of the First Separate Assault Regiment watch the front line on live feeds while coordinating units at a command center in Pokrovsk, Ukraine on May 10, 2025.” You can see and sense the tense atmosphere. Katie Livinstone took this photo near the end of a supposed cease-fire that Ukrainian soldiers never saw in reality. Livingstone’s access to this scene is noteworthy, during a pivotal moment in the war. We see the command center is assembled using whatever resources were available, but the focus is on the soldiers — their work and dedication.
Winning Photograph
Journalist Biography
Katie Livingstone
Katie Livingstone is an American journalist who has spent the past three and a half years reporting from Ukraine, covering the war from the front lines and the far corners of its human impact. Her work explores how war reshapes identity, tests democratic institutions, and redefines military service in the modern era.
She has written for Military.com, Rolling Stone, Foreign Policy, Ms. Magazine, Newsweek, Byline Times, and the Kyiv Post, combining immersive field reporting with longform storytelling that humanizes complex geopolitical events. Her work includes interviews with prisoners of war, medics, intelligence officers, foreign fighters, and draft resisters — all framed through a narrative lens that emphasizes moral complexity and personal experience.
Katie holds two master’s degrees: one in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School, where she specialized in politics and
foreign affairs, and another in gender studies from Central European University. She was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to work on gender
and democracy in Albania and, most recently, received a scholarship to study the Ukrainian language at Harvard University. She is fluent in
Italian and Spanish, conversational in Ukrainian, and proficient in several other languages.
In addition to her field reporting, Katie currently serves as a reporter and assistant editor at Kyiv Post, where she helps lead special projects,
SEO strategy, and newsletter development. She was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2023 and continues to focus on stories that connect
readers to the emotional and civic stakes of war — especially as public attention wanes.