Polina Uzhvak

I’m a journalist with Istories media. I worked for Istories for five years. My path in data and investigative journalism started here. As a data journalist, I wrote a lot about Russian social issues: problems of orphanages, environmental problems in various regions, the accessibility and quality of schools in small towns and villages, labor mortality and other topics. As an investigative journalist, I focused on corruption and nepotism in the Russian government. My colleagues and I were forced to leave Russia after the full-scale invasion in February 2022. Our media was recognized as an “undesirable organization,” which means that all types of collaboration with it could constitute a criminal offence. Since then, I cannot reach people in my country personally, work on the ground, or take interviews with some experts for safety reasons. Despite that, I strive to continue telling important stories while maintaining the quality of my work. Now I mostly investigate war crimes and describe how life is going inside Russia in wartime. My main topic of interest is the abduction of civilian Ukrainians in the Russian-occupied territories. I took part in global collaborations. This year I joined journalists from six countries for the Viktoria project. We have joined forces to investigate the death of Ukrainian journalist Viktoriia Roshchyna and expose how Russia is systematically detaining and torturing Ukrainian civilians. Last year, I participated in a project with journalists from Tagesspiegel and analysts from Vertical 52. Using satellite images, we examined the scale of destruction in the three most heavily damaged Ukrainian cities occupied by Russia: Mariupol, Severodonetsk, and Bakhmut. These collaborations taught me valuable lessons and produced results I could not have achieved on my own. I also give masterclasses to colleagues and students in various educational programs to share my experience in data and investigative journalism.