About us
Built in wartime. Fiercely independent. Reported from the ground.
The Counteroffensive was founded in 2023 by journalist Tim Mak.
The premise is simple: foreign correspondence needs to become more personal.
The publication was launched to focus on the people resisting authoritarianism around the world, to use magazine-style, human-focused journalism to build bridges. Our reporting is centered on the ‘who’ – not just a recitation of the day’s events.
What began as a single newsletter has grown into a media company with numerous publications, spanning frontline human-interest reporting, defense technology business intelligence, Ukraine’s reconstruction economy, and dispatches from the war in Iran.
We remain fiercely independent. Our flagship publication, The Counteroffensive, is funded directly by its readers, and every publication in our group is built on subscriptions — our journalism answers to the people who read it.
Telling the stories of those who defend democracy. The Counteroffensive Media Group
Our founder
Tim Mak
Founder & CEO — The Counteroffensive Media Group
Tim Mak landed in Kyiv on the night before the full-scale invasion.
He has been reporting in Ukraine ever since. In 2023, deciding to stay in the war zone, he launched The Counteroffensive.
A former investigative correspondent for NPR and a former U.S. Army combat medic, Tim has spent nearly 20 years covering national security, politics, and emerging technology. His reporting has appeared in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, and beyond, and he is the author of Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA.
The Counteroffensive was founded on a simple conviction: that as major outlets shuttered their foreign bureaus, the world needed a new model for international reporting: deeply human, fiercely independent, and reported from the ground. Today it is one of the most-read international publications on Substack.
Our core values
On the ground
Built in wartime Kyiv, we report from dangerous, hard-to-reach places so you don’t have to be there. Our team lives and works where the story is happening.
Independent
Our publications are built on subscriptions, with our flagship funded directly by readers. Our only obligation is to the truth and to the people who read us.
Actionable
From frontline human stories to defense-industry intelligence, our reporting is original, rigorously sourced, and built to help readers understand — and act.
Empathetic
We center our reporting on the voices at the heart of every story — the people living through history, the people writing the regulations, the people building the technology.