Nataliia Sokolenko - attack 04.02.2025

On 25 February 2025, a post appeared on a Telegram channel authored by Miroslava Berdnyk, which is run in Russian. The post included a fragment of a video featuring Nataliia Sokolenko, a host at Ukrainian Radio. The post stated the following:

“Grant-eating ‘kugutka,’ expressing hope for the restoration of funding, makes a public denunciation claiming that the largest recipient of United States Agency for International Development grants in Ukraine is the Ukrainian government, and that even during the government of Mykola Azarov it was exactly the same. She gives a stunning example: she claims to have witnessed Azarov being handed 45 million dollars… to fight corruption in the government of Ukraine! Imagine — essentially a bribe! And for what? Perhaps so that the government would not notice how the international ‘Soros network’ has been corrupting society for years?”

In the video referenced in the post, journalist Nataliia Sokolenko comments on accusations circulating in the information space about the alleged “grant funding” of Ukrainian media and civil society organizations. She explains that such claims are manipulative and based on a distorted interpretation of international assistance to Ukraine.

The journalist also refers to earlier periods when international donors cooperated with Ukrainian authorities during the government of Mykola Azarov, illustrating that such cooperation with state institutions existed in the past as well.

This case contains signs of a combination of several forms of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) targeting Nataliia Sokolenko: gendered insults, humiliation, and misogynistic language; discrediting of her professional activities; accusations of disloyalty or “denunciation”; as well as manipulative distortion of her statements and the spread of disinformation narratives.

For example, the author of the post recounts a story about the alleged transfer of “45 million dollars… to fight corruption” and presents it as “essentially a bribe.” This framing creates the impression that the journalist confirms corrupt practices or spreads such claims herself. This can be interpreted as a manipulative interpretation or removal of the journalist’s words from their context in order to construct a discrediting narrative.

Taken together, these TFGBV elements form a reputational online attack aimed at undermining trust in the journalist and her public position.