Elena Kostyuchenko Author

Elena Kostyuchenko is an LGBTQ+ activist and investigative journalist, having written for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta in Russia before it was shut down six weeks into the war with Ukraine. She was the first journalist to break the information blockade around the city of Zhanaozen during the massacre of December 2011. While she has been arrested and assaulted many times for her journalism and activism, her reportage has also won her the Free Word Prize and the Distinguished Writing Award by the European Press Prize, among other accolades.