PortraitIn exile in Europe while writing a book, the Russian journalist has planned to return to her country, where she risks prison for the reports on the “special military operation” in Ukraine that she produced for “Novaya Gazeta despite censorship.
For some, the phrase might sound like a posture: “Between prison and emigration, I choose prison. » Not with Elena Kostioutchenko, a journalist of exemplary integrity, who is only taking a break somewhere in Europe to write a book. Then she will return to Russia to face the destiny she has chosen. The 34-year-old adds: “I’m not ashamed of my work. On the contrary, I am proud of what we have done. »
What she did, Elena Kostyuchenko, was to be the last journalist from an independent Russian media to work in Ukraine, facing both the difficulties on the ground and, in the rear, the rigors of military censorship.
“I arrived with nothing, and throughout my mission, Ukrainians helped me. Despite what is said about the rift between the two peoples, it remains important for the Ukrainians to make their voices heard directly in Russia. » Elena Kostyuchenko
On the first day of the “special military operation” decided by Vladimir Putin, February 24, the newspaper Novaya Gazeta sends two special envoys to Ukraine: one is arrested by the FSB, the federal security service, before crossing the border; the other, Elena Kostioutchenko, returns via Poland. “I arrived with nothing, and throughout my mission, Ukrainians helped me, explains the journalist. Despite what is said about the rift between the two peoples, it remains important for the Ukrainians to make their voices heard directly in Russia. »
Other Russian independent journalists work in Ukraine, but for media that have had to resort to exile. The Novaya Gazetathe legendary journal of Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitry Muratov, is the last to resist, surviving somehow in Russia.
Elena Kostioutchenko stayed in the country for more than a month, writing reports from Odessa, Mykolaiv or Kherson. We find the style that made her one of the great feathers of Novaia : long monologues from the interviewees, extreme sensitivity, attention to detail and precision.
So many qualities that she is used to deploying on various subjects – the conflict in the Donbass of 2014-2015, psychiatric boarding schools for adults, pollution in Norilsk, a mining town in the far north of Siberia, or highway prostitutes Russians, subjects often neglected by the Russian media and which she has covered with unanimously recognized brilliance.
The forbidden words
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