Olha Kyrylenko - attack 12.05.2026

On May 12, 2026, a post featuring a fragment of a Radio Liberty broadcast appeared on the X account @hernan14821547. Journalist Olha Kyrylenko from Ukrainska Pravda was a guest on host Vlasta Lazur’s program. The quote from Kyrylenko highlighted in the screenshot attached to the post referred to Territorial Recruitment Centers (TCCs) and the fact that “they cannot defend themselves because they go out to deliver notices without weapons.” The post itself was accompanied by the phrase: “Who is this, what kind of media whore is Kyrylenko 🤔”

The comments under the post contained signs of technology-facilitated gender-based online violence. In particular, journalist Olha Kyrylenko was targeted with expressions such as “media whore,” “media sluts,” “riffraff,” “gender equality activist,” and “a feminist obsessed with lesbian issues.” One of the comments also included a screenshot describing one of the online attacks against Olha Kyrylenko previously documented on the Women in Media incident map.

The broadcast fragment featuring Olha Kyrylenko was also redistributed by other X accounts and accompanied by comments of a degrading, offensive, and manipulative nature. Some of them included threats of physical violence. For example:

• “Two little women journalists discussing how to beat the damned draft dodgers even harder — give weapons to the TCCs so they can shoot. They are calling for the overthrow of the constitutional order — the Constitution forbids using the army against the population.”
• “These two whores should have lead poured down their throats.”
• “She won’t recover until the TCC beats her over the head.”

Thus, this case represents a complex online attack with clear signs of technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV), combining hate speech, misogynistic insults, sexualized humiliation, gendered disinformation, and threats of physical violence.

Journalist Olha Kyrylenko is discredited not because of the substance of her statements, but through degrading gender-based labels such as “media whore,” “media sluts,” and “feminist,” aimed at undermining her professional position and dehumanizing her as a woman. Manipulative references to gender equality and sexuality are additionally used as tools of mockery and stigmatization.

The spread of the broadcast fragment across multiple accounts and the escalation of aggressive comments, including calls for violence, indicate a coordinated reputational attack intended to intimidate the journalist and push her out of the public sphere.