Journalist Elena Kostyuchenko was reporting in Ukraine last year when she got word that the Russian military was planning her assassination. She was told that soldiers at checkpoints had been ordered to kill her.
Days later, Kostyuchenko, a Russian citizen, fled the country. Unable to return home, she remains exiled in Europe. Earlier this year, she fell ill – in what doctors suggested may have been a poisoning attempt. The case is now being investigated by police in Germany.
Kostyuchenko spent 17 years writing for the independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, until it was shut down in September 2022, as a result of her reporting on Russia’s war in Ukraine. During that time, she covered the war in Donbas and the 2020 Norilsk oil spill, spent two weeks undercover in a Russian “concentration camp” for people with mental illnesses, and reported extensively from Russian regions, including the North Caucasus.
