Tim Mak
Tim Mak is an American journalist and editor of The Counteroffensive, a Kyiv-based publication. He was previously an investigative correspondent for NPR, where he covered national security, politics, and technology. He wrote Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA (2021) and graduated as valedictorian from McGill University.
Mak has broken several major stories, including the Maria Butina case and, after a threat from President Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, published audio of Cohen’s threats. In 2020 he obtained audio of Senator Richard Burr discussing how bad the COVID-19 pandemic could be, which led to Burr facing a possible insider-trading investigation after Burr sold stocks.
He has written extensively about the NRA, including secret tapes from NRA leaders after the Columbine High School massacre (2021). He covered the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine from within the country, arriving on day one. His Ukraine investigations included identifying the 53rd Anti-Aircraft Missile Brigade, the unit that shot down MH-17, and examining a war crime in Nova Basan.
In May 2023 he launched The Counteroffensive, a newsletter that uses narrative journalism and personal experience from Ukraine and other places facing authoritarianism. He told Slate he aims for deeply reported human-interest stories. By 2025, The Counteroffensive had become the most-read publication in Substack’s International category, with about 150,000 subscribers and a small team of local Kyiv journalists.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:27 (CET).