“I’ve Never Spoken Ukrainian as Much as I Did During the Occupation.” How Writer Olena Malyarenko Turned Satire into a Weapon
In the darkest times, imagination becomes a sanctuary for a creative mind. During the occupation, thousands of Kherson residents eagerly awaited Olena Malyarenko’s witty, sharp, and humorous Facebook posts. Her stories vividly portrayed life in the city, the absurdities of the Russian invaders, and the resourcefulness of her fellow citizens. She risked her freedom and life many times, but her sense of humor always helped her navigate the toughest situations.
In Kherson, Olena is known as one of the city’s most stylish figures. She’s impossible to miss: a voluptuous woman adorned with a traditional Ukrainian headpiece, vibrant earrings and necklaces, and an embroidered blouse. This was how she dressed even in 2022 when the Russians occupied the city. She embroidered custom t-shirts inspired by Maria Prymachenko’s paintings, penned bold and humorous stories for social media, and didn’t shy away from confronting the occupiers. Humor and beauty became the lifeline that kept both Olena and her followers from falling into the abyss of despair.
"The Russians Used Our Books to Make a Staircase"
On February 24, 2022, Kherson-based writer Olena Maliarenko, like millions of Ukrainians, woke to the sound of explosions. At first, neither she nor her husband, a retired pilot, believed that a full-scale war had begun. Then they saw smoke rising from Chornobaivka Airport.
That’s when they sat down to read the news.
Later, Olena began preparing for work as usual. At the time, she was the director of a library in the village of Stanislav in the Bilozerka district, 40 kilometers from Kherson. With public transportation shut down, she spent the entire day searching for someone among her acquaintances who could drive her to the village to "save the treasures." So much effort had gone into library projects that abandoning the books and embroidered shirts stored there seemed unthinkable to her.
“Just before the full-scale invasion, we painted the ‘Wall of Friendship’ in the library with the children,” Olena recalls. “Kids from all over the village took part. They pressed their hands on the wall, which we turned into birds, flowers, and leaves. Together, we created a tree. We also set up a room in the library where schoolchildren could drink tea, chat, and listen to audiobooks after classes — a kind of kids’ club.”
Neither that day nor the ones that followed did Olena manage to make it to Stanislav. No one agreed to drive her. She began calling locals and people from the village council, asking them to take home the most valuable books and embroidery. As it turned out later, no one did — fear of the looming occupation left them no time for the library. By late March, Russian forces had entered the village.
“They couldn’t open the library doors, so they smashed a window, stacked our books to make stairs, and climbed inside,” Olena recounts. “Later, they removed another window and gave it to a local collaborator to install in his house.”
Olena learned about the fate of her beloved library only after liberation. What she saw in November 2022, upon visiting the village, was shocking. But that came after long, grueling months of occupation.
In the meantime, the woman faced another tragedy — her husband fell gravely ill. It happened after an encounter with the occupiers. By mid-March, Russian forces roamed Kherson as if it were their own. They stormed into apartments, looted homes, and abducted people. One day, they came to the neighbors of Olena and her husband, Borys, and began pounding on the door. Borys went downstairs, asking them to stop and suggesting they call the owner to let him open the door himself.
“They poked him in the stomach with their rifles and said, ‘Old man, get lost!’ It was such a humiliation!” Olena recalls. “I saw him climbing the stairs afterward, and some kid in a balaclava was jabbing him in the backside with a rifle.”
On March 22, following the shock of this event, Borys suffered a stroke and was taken to the hospital. Olena stayed by his side, missing all the patriotic rallies.
A month later, he passed away. At just 43 years old, Olena found herself completely alone in the occupied city. Her mother had also passed away in the summer of 2021. Recalling those harrowing events, even two and a half years later, she still cannot hold back tears.
The loss of her family and job left Olena fearless. Before her husband’s death, she had considered leaving the occupied city. But after losing Borys, she decided there was no point in saving just herself. Instead, she started saving others. She took in an elderly lady whose house had been bombed, letting her stay in her mother’s home near the river port. She also regularly brought food to seven elderly women, helping them survive.
“People in occupied Kherson were dying of hunger,” Olena states. “After liberation, mummified bodies of elderly women were found in two apartments. No one knows how many more cases there were. People don’t like to talk about it, but it’s the harsh truth.”
For Olena, creativity was her lifeline — not just poetry and stories, but embroidery as well. This hobby, which began in her childhood, became a form of resistance during the occupation. It was during this time that she started wearing traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts, headdresses, and necklaces, boldly walking the city streets now draped in Russian tricolors.
"Kadyrovites said, 'Forgive us, mother,' and I told them, 'Just go and behave yourselves, OK?'"
In April, Kherson was overrun by invaders of all kinds — Buryats, Kadyrovites, Ukrainians from the so-called "DNR/LNR," and Russians. Writer Olena Malyarenko had to interact with members of almost all these groups.
The writer believes that her ability to navigate difficult situations unharmed was thanks to the experiences of her youth spent in Makiivka near Donetsk. Born in Kherson, Olena moved to Donbas with her parents. Her father was a miner, and her mother taught Ukrainian language and literature. After finishing school, Olena pursued a degree in Ukrainian philology. She taught in Donetsk for some time before returning to Kherson in 2005.
Olena’s formative years were in the 1990s when Donbas was notorious for its crime and hooliganism. She recalls being confronted by street thugs seven times on her way to university but managing to talk her way out of trouble every time.
"You just need to stay calm — don’t panic, don’t scream, and don’t cry," she explains.
She applied this philosophy when dealing with the occupiers. The Kadyrovites, in particular, acted brazenly, especially toward women. They harassed passersby and constantly tried to assert their dominance.
Once, Olena witnessed a horrifying yet absurd scene. A convoy of occupiers arrived at a local hair salon: a large black SUV led the way, followed by a military van and several sedans stolen from locals.
Armed men jumped out, stormed into the salon, and soon, frightened Kherson residents came running out. Then, the SUV door opened, and out stepped a tiny Chechen military man, followed by a tall, model-like local woman. Surrounded by gunmen, the two headed into the salon. It turned out the Kadyrovite commander had brought his mistress in for beauty treatments.
For Olena, interacting with Kadyrovites wasn’t as challenging as it could have been. Her striking appearance, complemented by traditional Ukrainian attire, worked to her advantage.
"After burying my husband, something in me shifted. I spoke more Ukrainian during the occupation than I ever had in my life. I wore headscarves, necklaces, and embroidered shirts. My look helped me deal with the Kadyrovites. A woman in a scarf, big and imposing. When they started pestering me, I’d turn around and say, ‘How would your mother feel about this? What if someone spoke to her like this?’ They’d reply, ‘Forgive us, mother,’ and I’d say, ‘Just go and behave yourselves, OK?’" Olena recalls with a laugh.
Relations with her relatives from Donetsk were more complicated during the occupation. Their conversations left Olena with the impression that they felt deeply resentful toward Ukraine. In her view, many people in the region felt abandoned and betrayed in 2014, and that anger toward their countrymen hadn’t faded. Olena encountered these sentiments while talking to soldiers from the so-called "DNR." They saw her Donetsk-issued passport, assumed she was one of them, and even shared their grievances.
Once, the occupiers came to her home for tea — which turned out to be a cover for a search. Two of them sipped tea while the third wandered around, inspecting the house. Then, the writer recalls, she was terrified: behind the couch were stacks of books on Ukrainian history that she had prepared for shipment to her hometown library even before the full-scale war. Among them were works about figures despised by Russian soldiers, such as Stepan Bandera and Ivan Mazepa. But the situation de-escalated when the invaders became engrossed in conversation with her.
"We had a little moment of propaganda," Olena says, smiling. "I reminded them about 2014, how they didn’t want war either, how they didn’t initially want to join Russia. They agreed with me, saying, ‘Yes, they lied to us.’"
Dealing with Russians was the hardest. Several times, Olena narrowly avoided being detained. Each time, her resourcefulness saved her. The first incident occurred in spring when she was standing in line for Russian SIM cards — Ukrainian mobile service was down, and people were leaving messages for each other in prearranged spots.
Someone in line complained about the destruction, and Olena reassured them, "Don’t worry, our people will be here soon, and we’ll rebuild everything." Suddenly, a huge man grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and yanked her out of the line. It turned out he was a Russian soldier disguised in civilian clothes. Two Buryats with rifles quickly joined him. Right there, the man started interrogating her.
"'What do you mean by 'our people?' When? Where do you get this information? Why are you silent? Who promised you freedom?" he barked.
"Pushkin!" Olena blurted out, surprising even herself.
"Pushkin? What Pushkin?" the invader asked, confused.
"In centuries to come I shall be loved by the people. For having awakened noble thoughts with my lyre, For having glorified freedom in my harsh age," she quoted from memory, then scolded him: "You’re a grown man and this ignorant? Don’t you know Pushkin? What about your 'great Russian literature'? Didn’t your parents teach you to read Pushkin?"
"Why so bold, huh? Aren’t you scared?"
"Of course I’m scared. If I had two friends with rifles, you’d be the scared one. But since you’re the ones with the rifles, it’s me who’s scared," she quipped.
The occupiers tried to intimidate her further but eventually let her go. However, another dangerous incident happened in the summer. Olena was photographing a ruined house to send to a friend who used to live there.
She didn’t know it was being used as a Russian military base. Soldiers immediately ran out onto the street and grabbed the woman by the arms. The writer began explaining that she had come at a friend’s request to check whether her apartment was still intact, but the occupiers didn’t believe her and escorted her to the university building for interrogation.
There, by sheer luck, she ran into a former colleague from the local emergency services. "Our Alyona Nikolayevna is here!" he exclaimed. The Russians interpreted "our" to mean she was one of them and released her.
"People Read My Texts and Laugh"
For a writer, the best therapy is to write. Neither the loss of her closest loved ones nor the occupation could force Olena to abandon her craft. She regularly posted stories and essays on her Facebook page — reflections on the war and Ukraine's relationship with Russia. Some were even written in Russian, as she still harbored hope that words might reach the people who called themselves a "brotherly nation" while destroying their neighbor.
Olena Maliarenko’s true breakthrough came with her essay “Z-Show,” about Russian soldiers conducting a search on a boat full of vacationers. She published it on May 5, 2022, and by the next day, she had become famous. The post amassed tens of thousands of views and over 500 shares.
“The next evening, I went out to Suvorova Street, and I heard people reading my text aloud and laughing! And all this while armed Russians in balaclavas were walking around,” Olena recounts. “That’s when I decided I would keep writing! Since I’d worked with Yevhen Brykov up until 2018, rumors started spreading that I was allowed to write because I was a Russian provocateur. Those rumors only stopped after I began receiving public threats from pro-Russian residents.”
Yevhen Brykov now heads the so-called "Ministry of Information Policy" for the Kherson region’s occupation administration. In the early months of the occupation, he collaborated with the enemy, though his pro-Russian leanings were apparent even before the full-scale invasion. From 2015 to 2018, Olena Maliarenko worked as an editor for the news agency "Lyubimyi Kherson," which Brykov managed.
Olena often clashed with her boss. At night, behind her back, he would post paid pieces on the site — publications attacking the patriotic community or promotional articles for former members of the Party of Regions. That was the content Olena would never have approved. In 2018, she left the job, but her reputation suffered from their association.
“Brykov dreamed that the ‘regionals’ and Volodymyr Saldo, then a city council deputy, would start funding the site. He tried to make content favorable to them,” Olena recalls. “I explained to him that it’s distasteful to lick every inaccessible part of someone’s anatomy, even if they’re not paying you. But he believed his moment of glory would come. I was accused of separatism because of that job, but I didn’t bother trying to prove I wasn’t a traitor — I just left.”
In the summer of 2022, Brykov unexpectedly re-entered Olena’s life. He called his former employee and asked to meet. Surprised by his interest, Olena agreed. It turned out Brykov wanted advice.
“He asked me what he should do. I said, ‘Zhenya, you have money — run, because the Russians will force you to collaborate.’ I didn’t know he had already agreed to work with them. He told me then, ‘To them, we’re not people,’” Olena recalls. “Once, Brykov decided to explore occupied Kherson with his ‘Press’ badge. They threw him face-first into the dirt without even asking who he was or what side he was on. It was such a trauma for him! I remember him pale, with blue lips. How he managed to cross that line afterward — I don’t know.”
Olena’s social media essays grew in popularity, eventually reaching former colleagues who had agreed to work for the occupation administration. One day, she received a call from Hennadii Kabachenko. Now the owner and administrator of the Telegram channel "Infobur," which justifies Russia's occupation of Kherson, Kabachenko had only recently begun collaborating with the occupiers. He invited Olena to meet and discuss a potential partnership. When she declined, Hennadii began dropping hints that he knew her home address.
This frightened Olena. She realized it was only a matter of time before she would face a difficult choice, so she decided to play smart. In September 2022, the Russians allowed Kherson State University to resume its work. Olena applied to the psychology department and was accepted, as no entrance exams were required at the time. She used her student status as an excuse to avoid any involvement with the occupiers.
“I needed to keep them from bothering me or dragging me into propaganda,” Olena explains. “It was all just for show. The professors were simply repeating their old lectures. Everyone was starting to sense the end was near.”
Olena also avoided participating in the sham referendum on Kherson’s annexation to Russia, pretending to have COVID-19. When campaigners came to her apartment demanding she vote, they didn’t dare enter for fear of infection.
“They knocked on the door,” Olena recalls. “The elderly woman staying with me was terrified, but I shouted in a hoarse voice, ‘COVID! We’ve got COVID, we’re sick!’ and started coughing. I opened the door slightly, and they said, ‘Grandma, go back inside.’ I thought to myself, ‘I’m not that bad at acting after all.’”
By early autumn, the Russians made no secret of their plans to leave Kherson. They stopped repairing buildings hit by Ukrainian artillery and simply moved elsewhere. They no longer pretended to care about the locals, even saying things like, “Complain when your ‘Ukrops’ get here.” The writer's friend would secretly cut yellow and blue fabric into ribbons and hang them around the city. People were waiting.
“Kherson is a city of true anarchists”
By early November, Kherson was already without electricity. Rumors spread constantly about the first units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces approaching the city’s outskirts. Many of these rumors were started by the occupiers themselves. The Russians would sometimes drive around the streets with a Ukrainian flag, only to arrest anyone who believed they were Ukrainian soldiers and came out to greet them.
On November 11, Olena Malyarenko was helping out at a church — a friend had asked her to cover her shift selling candles. Suddenly, a woman burst into the church, shouting, “They’re here! Our boys are here!” She grabbed some candles and started placing them in front of all the icons, saying they were “for the health of our lads.”
The writer was skeptical of this announcement, aware of possible provocations, and didn’t believe it. But later that day, her friend visited and confirmed the news — Kherson was finally free!
“The next day, I walked through Kherson and saw women climbing up billboards with Russian propaganda, tearing them down,” Olena recalls, describing the happiest day Kherson had seen in years. “Children were running after military vehicles, climbing on them, and hugging the soldiers. Everything was draped in yellow and blue ribbons. I never imagined Kherson residents had so many Ukrainian flags! They were everywhere — in girls’ braids, on bags, on trees.”
Local women competed to offer Ukrainian soldiers homemade pies and other treats. They cooked them right in the courtyards of apartment buildings, using makeshift fires, as there was no electricity or gas in the city. Ukrainian soldiers jokingly complained that they had already been fed enough pies in the Kherson villages they passed through, but they never refused these heartfelt tokens of gratitude.
After the initial days of joy following the liberation, hard times set in. From the left bank of the Dnipro River, the Russians began relentless shelling of the city, which continues to this day.
In December 2022, Olena found herself under fire while collecting water from the river for household use — a necessity for many Kherson residents at the time. On her way home, she noticed the barrel she was carrying was leaking and was shocked to find bullet holes in it. As she walked away from the Dnipro, a Russian sniper began firing from the left bank, killing several people who had also come to fetch water.
In June 2023, Olena was forced to leave her home near the River Port after Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant, flooding her neighborhood. During the shelling, she lost both her cats — one suffered a stroke, and the other had a heart attack after a shell exploded nearby.
Despite these hardships, Olena remains in Kherson and has no plans to leave her beloved city. She believes the resilience that allowed Kherson to endure the occupation, inhumane living conditions, and relentless shelling lies in the unique character of its people.
“Kherson is a city of true anarchists. If enemies arrive in great numbers, we’ll hide in the reeds. If they don’t leave, we’ll come out of the reeds and fight them. Pure partisans,” Olena says, describing her fellow Kherson residents and herself.
“When Donetsk was occupied, people there starved. Why? They didn’t know who would bring them food. When Kherson was occupied, Khersonites strapped on their backpacks, walked through the steppe to the next village, got food, and walked back. We’ve never relied on the authorities.
This doesn’t mean one group is bad and the other is good. It’s just that Khersonites have always been self-reliant. We’re on the edge of Ukraine, where financial resources rarely reach. We’ve always had the lowest salaries and ‘parachutists ’— outsiders from other regions — in power. People here have never had any illusions.”
Now, Olena works at the Kherson Regional Museum, specializing in ethnography, and continues her writing. Her stories inspired the monodrama “Bude Tobi, Vrazhe” (“You’ll Get Yours, Enemy”), staged at the Mykola Kulish Kherson Regional Academic Drama Theater. The production has been a hit in Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Poltava, Kryvyi Rih, and other cities across Ukraine, with tours ongoing. The writer still wears her bright embroidered blouses and necklaces, runs a speaking club called “Rika” (“River”) for those looking to improve their Ukrainian, and designs postcards and headscarves.
Olena maintains her connection with the Stanislav community, though she no longer works at the library. Unfortunately, the occupiers destroyed the rare embroidery collection — tearing pieces into rags and using them to bandage the wounds of those tortured in detention. However, some embroidered shirts and towels survived and now travel across Ukraine as part of the “Lomykamin” (“Stonebreaker”) exhibit. The library building survived too, and Olena hopes to meet children there once again for reading and art sessions.
“This is my land, and I want to be here,” she says