Elena Kostyuchenko

On 14.11.2025, the Russian Ministry of Justice added her to the register of media outlets and individuals acting as foreign agents.

Yelena Kostyuchenko began working in journalism while still in high school. Her first publications appeared in the Yaroslavl regional newspaper Severny Krai. According to her own words, at that time she was greatly influenced by Anna Politkovskaya’s articles, and the impression they made on her was so strong that Yelena decided to get a job at Novaya Gazeta in the future. In 2004, she moved to Moscow and enrolled in the Faculty of Journalism at Moscow State University. In 2005, she joined Novaya Gazeta as a special correspondent. She prefers investigative journalism. She wrote in detail about the mass murder in the village of Kushchyovskaya and the Pussy Riot case. Yelena Kostyuchenko was the first journalist to break through the information blockade surrounding the events in the city of Zhanaozen on 16 December 2011.