Yustyna Lisova - attack 06.12.2024

On December 5, 2024, the Hromadske page on X published a news post with the following text: “The West is allegedly preparing to send Zelenskyy to London after a peace settlement is reached in the Russian-Ukrainian war, writes El Mundo. Meanwhile, Ukraine is supposedly expected to hold presidential elections, which had been postponed because of the war,” along with a link to the corresponding article on the website.

The comments under this post contain signs of online attacks targeting both the media outlet itself and the editor who wrote the news item, Yustyna Lisova. In particular, a user with the nickname Lasha Tumbai (@DesiredPlanet) wrote: “Editor Yustyna Lisova, who wrote this and other nonsense, is a grant-eater from a student NGO funded by the Atlas Network foundation, which is sponsored by tobacco company FM and the oil producer Exxon Mobil. The latter cooperated closely with Rosneft and probably wants to continue doing so.”

Other comments also contain elements of hate speech and online defamation directed at the Hromadske editorial team, including phrases such as “trash outlet,” “shady organization,” “grant eaters,” “journalist whores,” “you’re a dump, not a media outlet,” and “are you journalists or a bunch of crap?” In addition, the outlet’s name was repeatedly deliberately distorted as “Khrobatske.”

On December 8, 2024, a few days later, the same user posted a comment about Yustyna Lisova under another Hromadske news post on X: “Oh, the author Yustyna Lisova again — the same grant-eater living off American-Russian oil money. Decided to throw a piece of crap at the President of Ukraine. How badly she must want Ukraine to collapse so she can receive a lifelong grant as a Ukrainian journalist living in Europe.”

Thus, this case demonstrates several types of online attacks directed both at the Hromadske newsroom and at journalist Yustyna Lisova. The comments contain elements of online defamation and professional discrediting (accusations of “grant dependency” and alleged funding by foreign corporations), hate speech and insults, as well as gender-targeted attacks aimed personally at the author of the article.