Valeriya Yegoshyna

Valeriya Yegoshyna is an intrepid investigative journalist who is documenting the impact of Russia’s war on her country.

Since the full-scale invasion, she has unearthed evidence of war crimes, details about a secretive Russian paramilitary force, corruption involving military contracts and more.

Yegoshyna is a reporter for Schemes, an investigative project of the Ukrainian service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). For several years before the war, she doggedly pursued investigations into corruption, uncovering wrongdoing involving members of parliament, the national police and the security service of Ukraine. Following some of her reports, officials were dismissed and prosecuted, and in the case involving the national police, an entire unit was dissolved. 

When the war began, Yegoshyna turned her attention to covering the conflict, with a focus on reporting from “de-occupied” Ukrainian towns and villages, often just a few kilometers away from Russian-controlled areas. She became known for her on-the-ground reporting – interviewing survivors and digging through destroyed buildings – as well as her technical analysis of cell phone records and satellite images to gather and corroborate information.

In 2023, a reporting team led by Yegoshyna revealed details about Redut – what many believed to be a private mercenary group – and their operations in Ukraine. In a video report that has garnered more than 2.5 million views, the journalists show that the secretive group is actually operated by the Russian military intelligence agency known as GRU, and recruiting fighters under false pretenses. Following the investigation, the European Union sanctioned Redut, and the British Defense Ministry cited the findings in its daily intelligence briefing.

For another investigation, Yegoshyna worked with her editor on the ground to probe the killings and torture of Ukrainian civilians and military personnel in the town of Izyum – hundreds who were buried by local volunteers in the Izyum Forest. Their reporting prompted a wave of DNA testing by loved ones. Using an intercepted voice recording, they also named a Russian commander who allegedly killed civilians.

Yegoshyna has not stopped investigating corruption in wartime. She and her colleagues, for example, uncovered possible fraud involving a government contractor hired to repair damaged roads in the Dnipropetrovsk region, under President Zelensky’s “Great Reconstruction” program. Afterward, a regional government official was dismissed and another official in the president’s office resigned.

Her reporting comes with great risks. Beyond the threats posed by covering the war, reporters at Schemes have been subjected to wiretapping, surveillance, court battles and online violence for their investigations. But Yegoshyna has said her biggest challenge is staying “mentally well” while reporting on the horrors of war.

Yegoshyna began at Schemes in 2016 as an intern. She has won top prizes at the V. Serhienko Investigative Journalism Competition and the Mezhyhirya Festival. The investigation she co-authored in Izyum received a Special Certificate of Excellence at the Global Shining Light Awards from the Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN). In 2019, the Kyiv Post recognized her as one of the "Top 30 Under 30.” Yegoshyna began her career as a journalist working at news outlets in Odessa, where she grew up.