Read our 8 long reads for every taste: about the memorial on the Maidan, quarrels in the Ministry of Defense, a billionaire prodigy, a Ukrainian bomber, “Nord Stream”, and Leonid Kuchma. Results-2025

The best investigation of Babel in 2025 was written by correspondent Oksana Kovalenko and editor-in-chief Kateryna Kobernyk — they tell about a big quarrel in the Ministry of Defense.

Four parties came together in the conflict: the minister himself, his subordinates, the head of the State Rear Department (DOT) Maryna Bezrukova and the head of DOT Arsen Zhumadilov, as well as the head of the NGO Anti-Corruption Center Vitaliy Shabunin.

The subject of the conflict was weapons purchases, and it itself lasted for more than a year and consisted of a dozen separate episodes. To make this material, the authors talked to more than 20 people: current and former employees of the Ministry of Defense, members of the Public Council under the Ministry of Defense, representatives of anti-corruption NGOs and people familiar with how the global arms market works.

Kobernyk and Kovalenko tell about how everyone lost in the battle for influence, authority and efficiency.

Correspondent Valeriia Tsuba talks about Palmer Luckey — the brightest industrialist in the American defense sector.

Palmer Luckeyʼs personality combines rebellion, intelligence, and entrepreneurial spirit. In recent years, when America began to seriously prepare for a military conflict with China, the American media has increasingly called him "Iron Man" — like a hero from the Marvel universe, only in real life.

Palmer Luckeyʼs biography truly reads like an adventure novel, in which zeal is combined with incredible luck. One of the episodes of this novel takes place in Ukraine.

Editor Gleb Gusev tried to find out the real biography of President Leonid Kuchma, and realized that it was almost impossible to do so.

Everyone knows that Leonid Kuchma ruled the fate of space projects, political parties, and financial and industrial groups. How exactly he did it is mostly unknown or forgotten. Living witnesses of his work talk about it either extremely sparingly or do not talk about it at all.

After two years of collecting material, conversations with people who knew Leonid Kuchma personally, dozens of memoirs read and hundreds of documents, court cases, analytical reports, and interviews, Gleb Gusev talks in detail about the "Kuchma" period in the early 1990s — the time of his premiership and the emergence of the first cohort of Ukrainian oligarchs.

Correspondent Hanna Mamonova wrote a report about the peopleʼs memorial to heroes on Maidan Nezalezhnosti.

This place on the main square of the country belongs to everyone and no one. Unnoticed by passers-by and the authorities, the spontaneous memorial began to live according to the rules of a cemetery: here they divide the land between units, reserve the best places, throw out other peopleʼs portraits to make room for their own.

The only caretaker of the memorial is 52-year-old volunteer Natalia Klymyuk. She weedes the grass, repairs the flags and portraits, and when storms, rains, and snowfalls turn the memorial into a mess, she collects the flags into "memory boxes". She is the only person who keeps everything together while the Kyiv City State Administration stands aside.

The report about the memorial on Maidan is the first of three planned large-scale materials on this complex topic. In the second, Hanna Mamonova talks to memorialization expert Maksym Yelihulashvili. The third article will be devoted to burials at Askoldʼs Grave.

Columnist Anton Semyzhenko retold a book by German investigators about how Russia bought hundreds of German officials and an entire province with “Gazprom” money — all in order to build the “Nord Stream” gas pipeline.

The cynicism of the heroes of this story is amazing, as is the scale of corruption. For Ukraine, this is a story with a sequel. Germany accuses Ukrainians of undermining “Nord Stream”. And one of them is even planning to be tried next year — his story and biography were also told for the first time by Babel.

The editor-in-chief Kateryna Kobernyk and correspondent Oksana Kovalenko told the great story of the life, service and imprisonment of Ukrainian veteran Serhiy Kuznetsov.

He spent the fall of 2025 in an Italian prison next to the terrorists of the Islamic State, until he was extradited to Germany on November 27. The German authorities believe that Kuznetsov led a group of Ukrainians who blew up the Russian “Nord Stream” in 2022.

Kuznetsovʼs biography was helped by his relatives, friends and comrades-in-arms. Serhiyʼs Ukrainian and German lawyers told about the details of the case. He himself described his life and everyday life in the Italian prison. Serhiy Kuznetsov is now awaiting trial in Germany and hopes for Ukraineʼs support. And we continue to follow the case.

Editor Gleb Gusev tells about the Deepstrike group, which destroys strategic targets deep in the Russian rear.

It is part of the 14th Regiment of the UAV Forces, and its operations are almost completely classified. It is difficult to calculate the exact damage it has caused to Russia, but the leader of the group, whose call sign is "Horynych", estimates it at $ 3-5 billion.

“Horynych” is a former businessman and small aviation enthusiast. The bomber he works with is named after his call sign. Until October 2025, “Horynych” had never spoken publicly about his work. Gleb Gusev was present at the preparation and launch of his mission. He asked “Horynych” about his civilian and military life and tells how his group came into being — thanks to stubbornness, faith and luck.

Columnist Serhiy Pivovarov talks about the Munich Pact, which was the culmination of failed Western diplomacy on the eve of World War II.

The leaders of Great Britain and France gave Germany part of Czechoslovakia, where ethnic Germans lived mainly, and thereby whetted Adolf Hitlerʼs appetite. The general outline of this plot is known, the historical analogies are obvious. Serhiy Pivovarov collected key details in the works of Polish, British and American historians.

He did this in his free time from service. Serhiy serves in the 13th brigade of the Charter National Guard, and his texts do not appear on Babel as often as the editorial staff would like. But when they do, they regularly break records in terms of reader attention.