Hanna Shelest, who participated in consulting the British company IN2 on the organization of the Yellow Ribbon movement, admitted that individual items with potentially dangerous tasks for activists in the temporarily occupied territories (TOT) remained in the movement's chatbot since its creation in 2022. She said that she could apologize for them, “although I was not responsible for this area.”
Shelest said this during the program “What was it?” on Suspilny.
An investigation by the Kyiv Independent published on April 24 alleges that the Yellow Ribbon put TOT activists in danger through tasks in the movement's Telegram chatbot. These included taking photos of pro-Ukrainian symbols in public places, listening to Ukrainian songs in public, burning Russian passports, and going on pickets. The journalists called such actions “suicidal.”
On the air, Shelest stated that the investigators' material “is based on a fusion of information that is not true.” Shelest claims that “they started with false information that was not further verified.”
“And if they wanted to talk about the safety of activists, then the article needed to be about the safety of activists, not putting labels around it,” she said.
Shelest called the article a “de facto devaluation” of all those Ukrainians who are in the occupied territory and are making decisions about how they would like to fight the occupation. According to her, everyone makes this decision independently.
“No one is forcing them. But safety has always been key,” Shelest said.
She partially agreed with the criticism of specific tasks.
“From the very beginning of the chatbot's creation, back in 2022, [there are] a few points for which I can apologize, even though I was not responsible for this area,” Shelest said.
According to her, some of the items date back to a period when public protests were still possible in Kherson in 2022, but they were not noticed and therefore were not removed later. Shelest claims that “no one has called” on people to listen to music on the street or burn passports, and activists could choose from 30 items what they were ready to do.
At the same time, she denied the journalists' claims that the risk to activists is created by the bot format itself. According to her, the bot is only automatic, and detailed communication with activists occurs through other methods, which she does not disclose for security reasons. Shelest noted that the GUR Ukraine chatbot also works in Telegram.
Shelest also denied that the responsibility for not fully reading the safety instructions in the chatbot lies with the organizers of the movement.
“Let's not forget that there are also very extensive safety instructions there, very detailed, moreover, which have been constantly revised since their creation. Here I was very surprised by the editorial staff's position, when, especially during the conversation, they actually accused me of not reading these instructions to the end, and at a certain point deciding that I would not read further. This is about like accusing someone who put a “50 kilometer” sign on the road that someone was driving 100 and did not drive through,” she said.
Shelest previously confirmed that she had been helping the Yellow Ribbon since 2022, but denied that she coordinated the movement. She described her role as a “liaison” between people on the ground and the British company IN2, which funded the project. According to her, safety has always been a priority for the organizers and for her personally.
Kyiv Independent editor-in-chief Olga Rudenko published a post on Facebook explaining the editorial position. She emphasized that for her, “this story boils down to one thing: the safety of our people in the occupied territories.”
Rudenko responded to the accusation that the article allegedly devalues resistance movements or denies their necessity. She stated that the article “names those who neglected the safety of people participating in resistance movements.”
The journalist also responded to the thesis that the security issues of the “Yellow Ribbon” should have been discussed privately. According to her, “privately, all the people involved have long known about the problems of the “Yellow Ribbon” – the material, according to the editor, contains comments from critics of the movement who had previously addressed the organizers and were not heard.
Separately, Rudenko commented on the presence in the material of a quote from Shelest from a conversation that took place off-record. According to the editor, this was a conscious decision of the editorial staff after consultations with a lawyer – the quote was published because they believed that the public interest prevailed. According to Rudenko, this quote showed that Shelest, “being involved in the activities of the Yellow Ribbon and receiving money for it, did not even know what tasks the chatbot was sending people to in the occupied territories.”
Investigation into the safety of Yellow Ribbon activists
On April 24, the Kyiv Independent published an investigation into the resistance movement “Yellow Ribbon” and the women's partisan movement “Zla Mavka”, both operating in TOT. The journalists claim that the movement put activists at risk due to its recruitment format and the tasks it offered its participants.
It is noted that the recruitment took place through an unencrypted chatbot on Telegram. According to the investigation, registration and familiarization with the security rules in the bot took 13 minutes, and passing the security protocols was not mandatory.
Among the tasks that the bot offered activists were to photograph pro-Ukrainian symbols in public places, burn Russian flags, listen to Ukrainian songs in public, go on pickets, etc. Kyiv Independent journalists called such actions “suicidal.”
One of the publicly known cases of persecution of a “Yellow Ribbon” activist is related to a photo with Ukrainian symbols. In 2024, Russian special services detained Sevil Veliyeva in occupied Melitopol – she was identified by determining the geolocation of the photos and viewing the video from surveillance cameras.
In 2022–2023, a representative of the Yellow Ribbon movement repeatedly publicly stated about the arrests and killings of activists, but in recent years the organization has stopped talking about this. In response to a Kyiv Independent inquiry about activists who were tortured, killed, or who went missing, the Yellow Ribbon denied that there had been such cases. According to Rudenko, in response to a Kyiv Independent inquiry, the movement stated that pro-Ukrainian actions on TOT “are not subject to criminal prosecution even under Russian law, but can only entail administrative liability.”
An anonymous source for Kyiv Independent in the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine stated that the organizers of the movement “unreasonably endanger the lives of their activists and profit from it.” The British company IN2, which supported the “Yellow Ribbon” and the women's partisan movement “Evil Mavka”, was funded by the governments of Great Britain and Canada.