NOVEMBER 3, 1997 — MARCH 14, 2022
24 YEARS, JOURNALIST, PHOTOGRAPHER
Oleksandra Kuvshynova was a journalist, photographer, volunteer. She believed that on February 24, 2022, at 5 in the morning, the pain of Ukrainian history came in a new wave of pain: Russia declared war on Ukraine.
Oleksandra said that freedom of speech is Achilles’ heel for Putin. Without television and internet, Ukrainians know the truth, for they have felt it in their bones. The only truth of this very historical moment is that Ukrainians do not wish to be one with Russia, but Putin wants to be one with Ukraine, Oleksandra believed.
The reporter is 24 years old. She was. She fought in the information war for our country in the team of Fox News, until the Russian army shot the woman dead in the village of Horenka outside Kyiv. The occupiers demolished the vehicle with artillery fire on March 14. The vehicle Oleksandra and another Fox News reporter, Pierre Zakrzewski, were in.
She wrote to her friends that the Russians aim for the journalists, but they had been lucky so far. They had vests and helmets on all the time. Oleksandra was cracking jokes every chance she had, she believed it was the only way. «My colleagues and I were enjoying the Kozak mood. Although, it is hard to wake up to reality every morning», the journalist wrote.
In her opinion, the risk follows in your footsteps when you reach for new heights. That is why Oleksandra wanted to be involved in military journalism. To be of use and understand what actually goes on. And share the findings afterwards. To speak in plain, understandable words, just like the voice of independent Ukraine.
Oleksandra was Kyiv-born. She studied in gymnasium No 191 in Dniprovskyi district and graduated from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and Harvard University. Before her journalistic career, she worked as a spokeswoman for the Ministry of health of Ukraine.
She was fond of photography. She documented the «demilitarization» instrument that affected a 7-year-old girl. Her camera caught the remnants of the Russian weapon that struck the Kyiv hospital «Okhmatdyt». «It is natural for the Russian army to shell maternity hospitals in Ukraine», Oleksandra wrote. She questioned: «The newborns and the pregnant, are they the Nazis and the junkies»?
The journalist was head over heels for Kyiv. «There is no other like it. It cannot be lost. Kyiv is my forever blast», she said. On April 20, St. Michael’s Cathedral held a farewell ceremony for Oleksandra.
