Yana Chumachenko - attack 30.03.2026

On March 30, 2026, identical posts began appearing across several pro-Russian Telegram channels. Written in Russian, they claimed that a “Ukrainian IPSO Telegram channel posing as an LNR news aggregator” had allegedly been exposed.

The authors were referring to the Ukrainian media outlet SD.UA, formerly known as “Severodonetsk Online.” Its editor-in-chief, Yana Chumachenko (Mostova), has previously been targeted by online attacks from pro-Russian Telegram channels.

“The resource ‘Severodonetsk Online’ was created and supervised by Anastasiia Nidchenko. It was edited by Luhansk native Yana Mostova, a former employee of the website ‘Lugansk. Kommentarii.’ Both traitors давно fled to the Ukrainian steppes and continue to ‘work’ from there under the direct supervision of the command of psychological operations and non-kinetic actions of the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces. Essentially, they have become cheap tools of Kyiv propaganda,” the post claims.

The content of these posts shows clear признаки gendered disinformation and online defamation, as it spreads unverified and unfounded claims aimed at discrediting the journalist professionally and manipulating audiences. The replication of identical messages across multiple Telegram channels indicates coordination and suggests a deliberate effort to amplify the attack and maximize its impact.

“In their post, there were factual inaccuracies — aside from the fact that the whole text reads like someone’s wild imagination. They couldn’t even properly verify basic information,” Yana Chumachenko said in a comment to Women in Media.

In 2024, Women in Media had already documented a previous attack against Yana Chumachenko on its online map. At that time, a Russian pro-war (“Z”) blogger, Vyacheslav Yakovenko, accused the editorial team in his Telegram channel of producing and spreading fake news, citing as an example a publication about schools in an occupied city.