In the anonymous Telegram channel “Base 111”, a spreadsheet of more than 500 rows has appeared. It contains data on public figures whom the channel’s authors accuse of “propaganda activity”, “grant-eating” and supporting the “Zelenskyy regime”. Many of them are women working in the media.
“Zelenskyy’s propagandists”
On October 2, 2025, the Telegram channel “Base 111”, moderated by unknown individuals, published an attached file titled “Baza_111_Pro-Zelenskyi_regime_propagandists”. It is a pdf table compiling hundreds of names of Ukrainian civil society figures, media workers, politicians, military personnel, and others. They are described as “supporters of the Zelenskyy regime”, “propagandists” and accused of “publicly supporting President Zelenskyy”. Their names are accompanied by job titles, and, for some of them, dates of birth are also listed.
“All personal data provided (including dates of birth) is taken from open sources: media outlets and Wikipedia,” the note to the table reads.
As of November 6, 2025, the file is nine pages long, but the Telegram channel states that the data is being constantly updated. In subsequent posts, the channel’s authors explain why they created this “list of accomplices and propagandists of the Zelenskyy regime”. In their opinion, this list compiles the names of people who were involved in “taming freedom of speech and political opposition”, “stood beside those in power” and defended its allegedly unlawful actions, and so on.
This list, one of the posts says, is “not for revenge, but for memory and accountability”. It contains 585 names, and the authors of the Telegram channel invite anyone interested to download the database to their computer so that the file cannot be completely deleted or destroyed. They also call on users to send the admin data on other people who, in their view, may be involved in supporting the “Zelenskyy regime.”
The table includes the names of many Ukrainian women journalists. The editor-in-chief of Ukrainska Pravda, Sevgil Musayeva, is called a “propagandist, foreign agent|grant-eater, justifying recruitment center crimes, supporting or calling for the arrest of critics of the authorities”; the editor-in-chief of the online outlet Detector Media, Natalia Ligachova, is labeled “a secret informer, foreign agent|grant-eater, propagandist, supporter or caller for the arrest of critics of the authorities, justifier of recruitment center crimes”; member of the Supervisory Board of Suspilne, Anastasiia Hudyma, is called a “propagandist”; the head of Babel, Kateryna Kobernyk, is described as a “propagandist, justifying recruitment center crimes, participating in the persecution of critics of the authorities” and an “accomplice in the Office of the President’s propaganda”; Hromadske correspondent Maia Orel is called a “propagandist, foreign agent|grant-eater, justifying recruitment center crimes, supporting or calling for the arrest of critics of the authorities, financing and assisting recruitment centers, advocating eternal war instead of peace”, and so on.
The table also mentions many women journalists from Babel, from Suspilne, the 1+1 TV channel and channels that are part of the Yedyni Novyny telethon.
“This is not the first time I’ve seen my name on such lists. They appear when I publicly express my own position or speak about the role of independent Ukrainian media on global platforms. Back in 2014, when I worked as a journalist in Mariupol, similar lists were accompanied by waves of threats and intimidation with promises of physical violence against me and my family members. Now this is repeating with new energy — in the form of anonymous Telegram channels that try to stigmatize Ukrainian journalists who have their own views,” Maria Frey, a member of the Supervisory Board of Suspilne, told Women in Media. Her name also appears on the table.
A few months ago, Maria deleted her Telegram account. This helped her feel safer. But even under these circumstances, Maria Frey adds, it is obvious that women working in public communications remain targets of systemic attacks.
Journalist and StopFake cofounder Olha Yurkova, who is also mentioned in the Telegram channel “Base 111”, says she did not know about this channel’s existence. She notes that, unfortunately, the StopFake team is quite used to such things, including being put on lists, hate in social media and even threats. Some of her colleagues went through this quite painfully:
“The hardest I took it was in 2018, when my talk at the global TED conference was published on YouTube and I started reading the comments. There were many direct threats, so I even felt frightened. But it turns out you really can get used to such things. Since our organization debunks Russian propaganda, the interested party here is fairly obvious. At one time, Russian state media whose fakes we debunk using evidence wrote about us as “Ukrainian propagandists.” We joke that this is a form of recognition,” Olha Yurkova comments. “As for this channel, I was surprised by the context in which I was included in this list. Having looked through the entire list, I can assume that it is about debunking fakes aimed at undermining mobilization. I commented quite actively on this topic, including on major TV channels. Mobilization is what Ukraine’s defense capability depends on. That is why, almost from the very beginning of the full-scale invasion, the aggressor launched anti-mobilization campaigns through organizations masquerading as Ukrainian.”
The list is drawn up in a distinctly conspiratorial style, using clichés from Russian propaganda, Olha Yurkova stresses. The spread of such messages is a matter of national security; therefore, she is convinced there must be a state response to such actions.
The list also contains the name of Olha Yurkova’s colleague on the StopFake project, Olena Churanova, senior fact-checker and lecturer at the Mohyla School of Journalism:
“I didn’t know I was in this database, but I saw my colleagues’ reactions to their presence there. Because these are colleagues I respect greatly, I can only perceive this as a kind of recognition that I am doing something right in this life and for Ukraine. Since we debunk lies and therefore challenge someone’s beliefs that may be built on lies, I have become used to accusations, harassment, hate mail or comments containing hate speech. I usually try not to react to any of this, to ignore it, sometimes even to mock it. Because the accusations are simply absurd. Of course, if these threats start to include specific calls to action, the use of personal data, that will be grounds for contacting the cyberpolice and our colleagues, so that such situations are publicly highlighted,” says Olena Churanova.
The list in the “Base 111” channel also labels Hromadske Radio journalist Valentyna Troian as a “foreign agent and grant-eater, propagandist”. She is accused of “justifying recruitment center crimes, supporting or calling for the arrest of critics of the authorities, participating in the persecution of critics of the authorities”.
“In general, I now react calmly to being added to various lists. You can’t please everyone, nor should you try. At the beginning of the war, I was added to the Russian equivalent of Myrotvorets — the sites Tribunal and Luhansk Blockpost. It had no impact on my work or life. As for that database being published, it is more of a field for studying the intellectual capabilities of its compilers,” Valentyna Troian told Women in Media.
The way her work is described in the table, the journalist says, is “very telling”:
“I really do work as a journalist at the Institute of Mass Information. Our organization documents crimes against the media and media professionals. And all that was ascribed to me personally shows that the people who compiled the database did a slapdash job. I was upset that my work was described in such an extremely brief way, without revealing the full scale of my personality. There is no need to be afraid of such people. My colleagues and I at the Institute of Mass Information had a good laugh at it, and that was that.”
“Foreign agents and grant-eaters”
In addition to the table, some media women have also been targeted in separate posts on the “Base 111” Telegram channel. Women in Media have already documented these on their website on the online attacks map.
The head of the investigative journalism agency Slidstvo.Info, Anna Babinets, is also labeled a “foreign agent” and “grant-eater”, and the following is written about her:
“She published a Slidstvo.Info piece calling for the punishment of lawyers who help Ukrainians defend their rights against unlawful actions by recruitment centers, even though neither her ex-husband nor her current husband is serving at the front.”
Journalist Nastya Horpinchenko was also singled out in a separate post by the channel’s authors because of her investigation into lawyers who help people avoid mobilization. This investigation was published on Slidstvo.Info’s YouTube channel on November 24, 2024. At that time, Women in Media recorded two waves of online attacks on the journalist. The first came immediately after the story was released, and the second after Nastya Horpinchenko sent complaints about the subjects of her investigation to the Qualification and Disciplinary Bar Commissions of Kyiv and Odesa regions. A post about this appeared on Slidstvo.Info’s official page on the social network X, triggering a wave of negative comments directed at the journalist.
The “Base 111” Telegram channel also makes separate mention of the host of an independent YouTube project, Yanina Sokolova. She is called a “propagandist, secret informer, supporter or caller for the arrest of critics of the authorities, advocate of eternal war instead of peace, justifier of recruitment center crimes”.
So it is clear that the topic of “justifying recruitment center crimes” is indeed a recurring one for this channel — its targets include those women journalists who produced stories, carried out investigations, or otherwise spoke publicly about avoiding mobilization.
Such posts, along with the descriptions of activities and accusations in the table, show signs of technology-facilitated gender-based violence online (TFGBV). This includes online defamation — attempts to discredit women journalists using false accusations and sweeping generalizations about their professional activities, as well as gendered disinformation, including online bullying and manipulative distortion of facts.
Moreover, this is also a matter of doxing — the search for and publication of personal information about women journalists without their consent. For example, dates of birth and data about their family members.
Women in Media condemns the actions of the administrators of the Telegram channel “Base 111”, who systematically disseminate personal data of journalists, accompanied by accusations that display features of defamation, doxing and gender-based online violence. Such publications pose a direct threat to the safety of media workers, fuel an atmosphere of hostility, encourage self-censorship and have a “chilling effect” on freedom of expression.
“We believe it is unacceptable to use anonymous Telegram channels to persecute journalists and spread disinformation that undermines trust in independent Ukrainian media. Women in Media will appeal to the Cyberpolice of Ukraine with a request to block the “Base 111” Telegram channel and investigate those involved in creating and administering this resource. We will also inform our partners of this case so that the incident can be recorded in international monitoring systems,” said Liza Kuzmenko, head of the Women in Media NGO.
As reported earlier, not long ago, Channel 24 host Daryna Trunova faced online attacks after publicizing the story of the death of her mobilized husband.
Women in Media documents online attacks against Ukrainian women journalists on a map. If you have faced online violence because of your professional activities and would like to talk about it, please fill out this online form or email us at ngo.womeninmedia@gmail.com.