Kateryna Kobernyk - attack 03.02.2026

On 3 February 2026, an article titled “Kolomoisky’s Mistress” was published on the website volodymyrboyko.wordpress.com, authored by blogger Volodymyr Boyko. The publication is illustrated with a photograph of Kateryna Kobernyk, Editor-in-Chief of the online media outlet Babel.

Throughout the text, Kateryna Kobernyk’s surname, as well as the name of the media organisation she leads, are repeatedly mentioned in a humiliating, contemptuous, and offensive context. This bears clear signs of an attempt to discredit the journalist’s honour, dignity, and professional reputation, as well as to undermine trust in the media outlet as an institution.

In particular, the author uses expressions such as (non-exhaustive list): “a worthless slut,” “the outstanding journalist K. Kobernyk” (used sarcastically), “the crap published by K. Kobernyk,” “media whore,” “K. Kobernyk, who has never in her life had anything to do with real journalism,” “an online outlet, even as disgraceful as Babel,” “the money Kobernyk receives for publishing primitive paid propaganda,” “a media dump,” and a comparison of Babel’s activity to “Al Capone’s night laundries,” implying money laundering through the work of the media resource. All of these formulations have a clearly degrading and discrediting character.

In addition, the author published a similar post in his Telegram channel “Zapysky Paskvilianta,” which at the time had an audience of more than 17,000 subscribers. This significantly expands the scale of dissemination of the offensive content.

In the comments under the post, the author also shared a short video generated using artificial intelligence technologies (hereinafter — AI).

The video was based on an image of Kateryna Kobernyk taken during the panel discussion “Media of the Future: The Role of Social Networks and Messengers” at the annual Media Days of the Georgiy Gongadze Prize conference in 2024. The rights to this image belong to the Prize organisers.

This statement creates a false and discrediting association with the widely known scandal involving American financier Jeffrey Epstein. The case concerns allegations that Epstein organised sex parties on his private island involving public figures, including the exploitation of underage girls.

Thus, the use of an AI-generated video featuring the journalist’s real image without her consent, combined with an audio message of sexualised and criminalised content, shows signs of deliberate discreditation, defamation, and technology-facilitated gender-based online violence directed against the journalist in connection with her professional activities.

This is not the first online attack against Kateryna Kobernyk by Volodymyr Boyko recorded on the online map of the NGO Women in Media. A previous incident of a similar nature was documented on 11 November 2025.

Overall, this case represents an example of a systematic online attack against a woman journalist, combining defamation, misogynistic language, gender-based insults, and the use of technological tools for humiliation. The focus of the publications is deliberately shifted away from the editor’s professional work toward her personal discreditation through sexist and sexualised labels.

The repeated nature of attacks by the same author indicates prolonged harassment and sustained online bullying, rather than an isolated episode of criticism or expression of subjective opinion.

“We are documenting not an isolated incident, but a systematic online attack against a woman journalist, combining defamation, misogyny, and the use of AI as a tool of humiliation. This is not criticism — it is a form of online harassment that directly threatens the safety of women in the media. At the same time, many women journalists do not report such incidents, trying not to amplify attention to the attacks and instead focusing on their professional work, which only highlights the scale and underestimation of the problem,” – says Liza Kuzmenko, Head of the NGO Women in Media and member of the Commission on Journalistic Ethics.