Elena worked for Novaya Gazetta, the last independent newspaper in Russia.
She covered corruption, prison violence, gay rights and Chechnya.
This isn’t a job for the faint of heart. She has been stalked, arrested and beaten on many occasions. Her newsroom was harassed daily. In fact, 4 of her colleagues were murdered under her watch.
After the invasion of Ukraine, the newspaper was shut down. She left Russia and moved to Eastern Ukraine. She started systematically documenting war crimes committed against Ukrainian civilians
https://femantiwar.org/en/interview-kostyuchenko/
She was forced to leave after Ukrainians warned her that Russian soldiers put a bounty on her head. (you can use english subtitles)
Then, a few weeks later, she was hospitalized.
Her food was poisoned in an attempt to kill her:
Elena miraculously survived and kept reporting.
She now teaches at Duke University in the US. When asked if she is afraid, she said the following:
Elena is one the bravest person I know.
When you think about it, people living in Western Democracies don’t know how good they have it. You can create a labor union in your company. You can run for mayor in your town. You can join an NGO and sue large corporations. Yes you can.
In my life, whenever I lack inner strength to do the right thing, I always think about her
I kinda feel so ashamed of myself knowing that I would never be able to be this brave…
I will memorize her appearance and her name. She will not be dismissed. She will not be forgotten or erased.
✊
This is a brave person and I hope she lives a long life and dies only when time comes for her.
can someone help me make her name sound out in verbal English?
Elena I get but
Kostyuchenko
cost you chen co ?
kost you chen ko
the
yousound is shorter than English you and that should be itis hiw i would say it i thinking its Ukrainian origin (and nearby countries)#
If they were an athlete, American announcers would say “KOTS-A-CHANKO”.
The ‘ka’ takes into account that ‘o’ tends to be pronounced as ‘ah’ when not in a stressed syllable (analogous to the schwa in English). But it’s not necessary, ‘ko’ would be more correct to the spelling and so better for international speakers.
Dunno at all where the ‘g’ came from.
Khos tu(ne) chen ko.
I worry that
- ICE now knows where she is
- they have a quota
- their boss is a Russian asset and wants a pat on the head
Can we get her to safety before they grab her and ship her back to Vlad?
The last time she fled to safety, Putin poisoned her anyway. Then she reported on her own assassination, went to Trump’s America and wrote a book on how Putin is fascist. She clearly made a decision, and I respect the hell out of it.
Seems like she is looking to do what is right, not what is safe.
Several people from Novaya Gazeta founded the offshoot Novaya Gazeta Europe, which continues to work from Latvia, in both Russian and English.
I recommend donating to them if you’d like to support independent reporting in Russia, seeing as Russians and Russian advertisers can’t do that anymore.
Meduza is another outlet that could use your support. They were previously known as Gazeta.ru and Lenta.ru, both of which were captured by pro-government oligarchs. Meduza, in contrast, is owned by its journalists. They were likewise persecuted by the government and had to move out sometime before 2022, so now also can’t take money from Russia despite living on donations and grants.
A couple others are Mediazona and Important Stories.
The original Novaya Gazeta also seems to be current and uncensored, even though they previously stopped in 2022 and apparently work from Russia according to the site’s footer. Dunno anything about that.
The Tankies are gonna hate this one
As a member of .ML, thank you for showing us that not everyone on that instance is a tankie. There are other anti-authoritarian ideologies on the left before you get to Tankie-ism
seems conservatives are also joining the fray
She told her story last year (March 2024) on This American Life. Worth a listen!
Rather they just read out her essay: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/how-they-tried-to-kill-me/ Bit it is indeed a good read/listen
Tough lady. Hats off to her.
Those eyes have seen some nasty shit.
InB4 someone talks about how big her balls are
Cool lady tho, thanks for the post
Toby from The West Wing would find this strange.
I don’t wish to make too many tangential top-level comments, so I am declaring this the tangential thread, but all I can think of is that America is on a path where someday we’ll also have journalists who will literally have to choose between the truth and their own safety. We already have so many who choose lies over the truth when their safety is not questioned.
We have most of them picking job security vs. asking the hard questions, and when a few do ask something beyond what’s expected from the officials we call them “brave”. All of them should be doing this.
Some of them from some networks are playing the game because they profit from it, which is a problem as well.
Don’t post pictures of text.
Do you say the same thing to all the Twitter screenshots, anon greentext stories, or comics?
Yes.
use quotes
Blind folks can’t read screenshots of text
You must have a great time over at https://lemmy.world/c/lemmyshitpost /s
But if I might make a suggestion. Why don’t you ask someone to do something? And if you feel inclined to tell them why. It might go over better than telling a random stranger on the Internet what to do.
But you do you boo.
Do you also ask fascists politely not to be rude to brown people?
No, ableism should not be tolerated any more than racism.
So someone who makes a stylised choice in formating a post to inform people of a cool person and may not know about said possible issue of the accacability, issues such as yours, is a fascist?
Do not attribute to malice, that which could easily be attributed to ignorance.
Don’t assume. It makes an ass u me.
All I’m saying is you should politely inform someone of a better way of doing something as opposed to telling someone to do something. I think I know a group of people who are known for telling other what to do. I wonder what it could be.
But go a head keep calling anyone who doesn’t do what you say or points this out to you a fascist.
Do you also ask fascists politely not to be rude to brown people?
No, ableism should not be tolerated any more than racism.
This community is all spam now.
Trollish fuck, I’ve read your comment history, u r as bad as anything being posted. Trumper fuck
Where’d you get that from? Fuck Trump, and fuck Putin too. I don’t oppose at all what this lady is doing, this kind of post is just not what YSK is for.
Then leave? No one’s forcing you to stay, dipshit.
found the Russian troll!
I have no idea how you arrived at that conclusion. Do you think I’m saying I oppose Kostyuchenko’s work?
YSK is for useful information, not random facts prefixed with “YSK that”.
then you should be more active in posting “useful information” instead of complaining.
Fair, but why call me a Russian troll?
well you conveniently edited your original comment, but you attacked the integrity of the post, not the content.
…I didn’t?
I get what you mean but I really don’t mind this post. I didn’t know her, and now I do, and I think that’s cool.
Fair enough, even if that’s not really YSK’s purpose. Thank you for not immediately jumping to hostility like the other three responders.
