On June 7, 2025, freelance journalist Olena Mudra from Zakarpattia reported a large-scale online attack linked to her professional work — in particular, her reporting on the preservation of high-mountain areas in the Ukrainian Carpathians threatened by wind power development projects led by Yefimov-Mkrtchan’s company “Vitroparky.”
Discreditation for Journalism
“A large-scale smear campaign was launched against me as a journalist covering efforts to protect the highlands of the Ukrainian Carpathians. Various anonymous ‘dump sites’ have been publishing fabricated stories — including false claims about my income and my family,” Mudra wrote on her Facebook page.
In particular, she referred to an article titled “Zakarpattia Online — a Media Outlet Serving the Aggressor?” published on From.ua on June 2, 2025, as well as another piece titled “Focus on Zakarpattia: How a Pro-Kremlin Conglomerate Is Blocking Wind Energy Development” published on Bagnet on June 7, 2025.
Both articles falsely accuse the online media outlet “Zakarpattia Online,” for which Olena Mudra regularly produces investigative reports, of alleged ties to Russia. The authors also claim that the journalist and her like-minded colleagues, who advocate for the protection of the Carpathian ecosystem, are supposedly “blocking the development of wind energy” in the region.
Olena Mudra has been working on environmental and ecological issues for several years, publishing a number of investigative reports on the topic. In 2024, she founded the NGO “Code 21” and also runs a social media project titled “Ecological Zakarpattia.” She works alongside scientists Oksana Stanukevych-Volosianchuk, environmental activist Nataliia Vyshnevska, and lawyer Nataliia Maistrenko. On May 23, 2025, Mudra posted a video on Facebook — recorded earlier on April 5 — documenting illegal logging in the “Shypot” forest district.
“Zakarpattia Online” became a target because it serves as an information platform for a campaign opposing wind turbine construction in high-mountain areas, which are surrounded by primeval forests and protected nature reserves,” Mudra explained in a comment to Women in Media.
“This kind of disinformation about our community is nothing new,” she added. “Last year, a Zakarpattia regional TV interview hinted at it — albeit without naming names — by then-governor and now Deputy Head of the Presidential Office, Viktor Mykyta. So we weren’t surprised. In some ways, we were even prepared — including for personal smears and fabricated stories about both our professional and private lives.”
Gendered Nature of the Attacks and Pressure Through Family
The article on From.ua also mentions the journalist’s family. Some of the claims are based on speculation, such as the following passage, which suggests that her son Maksym allegedly left the country “possibly to his grandmother in Russia”:
“Concerns have been raised about Mudra’s ties to Russia. Her mother lives there, and she herself visited the Russian Federation multiple times after 2014. Public information indicates that her son, Maksym, graduated from a military academy in Ukraine and later went abroad — possibly to his grandmother in Russia.”
In a comment to “Women in Media,” Olena Mudra clarified that her son did graduate from a military lyceum in Ukraine and left the country to pursue studies abroad even before the full-scale invasion began — but not to Russia, as falsely claimed, but to a European country. Her mother is also currently living abroad — and likewise, not in the Russian Federation.
The articles also mention that formal complaints have been submitted to the National Police, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), and the National Security and Defense Council (NSDC), demanding an investigation into the Zakarpattia Online platform for alleged links to Russia. Mudra interprets these actions as a form of pressure targeting her and her colleagues: “It’s alarming that the articles mention complaints allegedly filed with the regional SBU against me and other members of our campaign, as well as against Zakarpattia Online. This could serve as a cover for illegal surveillance activities intended to put pressure on me and force me to abandon my professional work,” the journalist told Women in Media.
A separate article on the “Bagnet” website labels Olena Mudra as a journalist who allegedly “produces fake investigations for grant money as a private entrepreneur, creating the illusion of fighting for environmental causes.”
The article published on From.ua was later reposted by a number of other websites, including “Aktsenty,” “Informator,” “Vlasti.net,” “Znaj.ua,” and others — further indicating the coordinated nature of the attack. Mudra notes that the same materials were also disseminated in local community groups in Perechyn and Turya-Remety, where wind energy companies have offices and facilities, and where illegal construction is taking place in the Rovna mountain meadow.
This is not the first time Mudra has been targeted. In March 2023, smear posts about her circulated in Facebook communities in Uzhhorod and Vynohradiv. In September 2023, she reported an attempted hack of her Telegram account.
When Silence Is the Goal: How Gender-Based Pressure Targets Women Journalists
The case of Olena Mudra is a textbook example of gender-based online violence related to her journalistic work. According to Liza Kuzmenko, head of the NGO Women in Media, the attack involves several forms of such violence:
– Gendered disinformation, including false accusations of collaborating with the aggressor state — a particularly toxic claim in the context of war;
– Public trolling that goes beyond professional critique and ventures into personal attacks on her family, with fabricated stories about her son and mother;
– Online pressure that includes threats of formal prosecution, such as references to SBU complaints — echoing the logic of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation).
“This is not just an attack — it’s an attempt to silence a woman journalist by smearing her name, discrediting her investigations, and undermining trust in the independent media outlet she works with. And even though the violence is online, its effects are real: stress, fear, self-censorship, and declining mental health,” says Kuzmenko.
“Unfortunately, Ukrainian women journalists often fail to recognize such attacks as violence, seeing them instead as ‘just part of the job’ — especially during wartime, when attention is focused on physical threats. But normalizing ‘minor’ forms of violence only leads to escalation,” she adds.
Recently, Women in Media NGO has launched a platform to document cases of online violence against Ukrainian journalists targeted for their professional activities. From now on, the interactive map allows users to track and analyze such attacks, helping to assess the scale of the problem and work toward its resolution.
This initiative is supported by the Dutch Foreign Ministry as part of the project “Strengthening the Resilience of Women Journalists in Ukraine: Combating Online Violence and Gendered Disinformation,” implemented by the Women in Media NGO.