Oksana Baulina
“…The ugly, neo-feudal structure must collapse.
It’s a pity, of course, that it will bury me or you under its ruins. But, as you know, it’s better to have an end with horror than horror without an end.”
01.11.1979 — 23.03.2022
Oksana Baulina, a Russian journalist and correspondent for The Insider, was killed on 23 March 2022 in Ukraine. She died during Russian shelling while on assignment, documenting the aftermath of the Kyiv shopping centre bombing.
She began her journalism career working for the Russian editions of fashion and lifestyle magazines such as InStyle, Time Out and Glamour.
In 2013, she joined Alexei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) team. After becoming chief editor of Navalny LIVE’s YouTube channel, Oksana had to flee Russia after the ACF was banned as an “extremist organisation”.
In November 2021, she began working for The Insider.
After Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Oksana Baulina reported from both Lviv and Kyiv on numerous occasions. Her last piece, Russia in Captivity, was published after her death. In it, she interviewed Russian prisoners of war, asking them how they had arrived in Ukraine, how they were captured, and what they envisioned for their future.
“My dreams, my future, and my comfort were not stolen from me yesterday or today. They were stolen from me – and from you, from all of us – by the Kremlin’s casting moves, falsified elections, discriminatory and cannibalistic laws, darkness and lawlessness in the courts, political verdicts, the annexation of Crimea, Goebbels-style propaganda, epidemics of extremism (“crime is lessism”) – and not just corruption. By total, some part of the population will learn the cause-and-effect relationships now. The ugly, neo-feudal structure must collapse. It’s a pity, of course, that it will bury me or you under its ruins. But, as you know, it’s better to have an end with horror than horror without an end.”
Oksana Baulina.
