Olena Kurbanova - attack 19.07.2025

On July 19, 2025, the X account Хуёвое Старобешево 🇺🇦 (@hubeshevo) posted a video clip featuring journalist Olena Kurbanova. In the footage, recorded while she was filming a video in Ukrainian, Kurbanova switches to speaking Russian between takes.

The author of the post captioned it: “Language warriors between takes 🤣 How they’re fooling the sheep in the herd — the scam of the century.”

The video was later reposted by user @EgenyBuchy, who added: “Another lying journawhore, nothing new.”

In the comments under the original post, users left the following remarks:

• “A sellout bitch.”
• “She’s always been a self-obsessed idiot.”
• “She’s a green & pro-Russian scumbag, a fool, not a real Ukrainian. They mimic, pretend, camouflage themselves as Ukrainians. If Russians appeared on the horizon, they’d be the first to betray Ukrainians.”
• “Fucking scum.”
• “Komsomol girl.”

This case demonstrates clear signs of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) — the use of digital platforms to humiliate, discredit, or harass a woman based on her gender, profession, or civic position.

It includes such forms of abuse as gendered defamation and sexism (through epithets like “another lying journawhore,” “sellout bitch,” “self-obsessed idiot”), as well as hate speech (such as “green & pro-Russian scumbag”) combined with politically motivated disinformation and delegitimization.

Such expressions are often used to construct a false image of a “traitor” or “agent,” a typical instrument of TFGBV targeting women in media. These attacks serve as tools of intimidation, humiliation, and professional delegitimization of women journalists.