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How a journalist from Kharkiv became a member of the Union of Russian Writers and now works in Donetsk.
“Global, smart, unconventional” is how pro-Russian writer Yuliana Lebedynska, also known as “Rysia Sumrachnaya” [Twilight Lynx] and “Rys Kystiovukha” [Tufted-ear Lynx], described her own books. Having traded Ukrainian glossy magazines for Moscow-based publishers, she has written at least four fantasy novels, several dozen short stories, and four children’s books. Today, she appears as a guest on Russian TV channels and conferences and is a member of the Union of Children’s and Youth Writers, the Union of Russian Writers, and the so-called “Union of Writers” of the occupied territories of the Donetsk region. Russian media portray her as a “talented author,” the “leading editor” of a Donetsk publishing house, and a “volunteer.”
In previous reports of the special project Media Collaborationists, we have already mentioned Ukrainian media professionals who knowingly collaborated with the invaders, such as Leonard Svidovsky, Rodion Miroshnyk, and Viktor Zubrytskyi. We’ve also published materials on journalists from the Kherson, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia regions who became collaborationists during the full-scale invasion.
Another distinct hub of Russian propaganda consists of “science fiction” writers who, for years, either lived in Ukraine or were guests at international literary festivals but, since the start of the war, have consistently spread anti-Ukrainian propaganda narratives — both in their books and public appearances. Although Lebedynska has not publicly disseminated these narratives, as her former colleagues from Ukrainian publications claim, she is now writing in Donetsk, where she moved in 2021. Detector Media reviewed her work to analyze the content she disseminates in the occupied territories, particularly for children.
Yuliana Lebedynska dressed as a cat
“My target audience is children aged 6–12,” Yuliana Lebedynska said in a video titled “How and Why I Became a Children’s Writer,” posted on her page in the Russian social network VKontakte, which is banned in Ukraine. In the video, she explained that she previously wrote books for adults but spent several years working as a “volunteer” with “children from disadvantaged families.” This experience, she claims, inspired her to switch to a younger audience.
Her biography is widely available on Russian book websites, and in interviews, she shares her journey to becoming a writer. Born in Kharkiv, she graduated from the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute with a degree in chemical technology. However, after earning her bachelor’s degree, she sought a career in journalism.
In Kharkiv, Lebedynska worked for the Teleskop magazine. In 2006, she moved to Kyiv, saying her “hometown became too small,” and within a year began publishing her works on literary websites under the pseudonyms Yuliana Lynx and Liera Zymnia. Some pieces were also signed with names like Taniana Mors or, in a more playful vein (as her feline persona emerged), Twilight Lynx and Tufted-ear Lynx (”Рысь Кистеухая” in Russian). Even on Russian self-publishing platforms, her works are tagged as “lynx-like,” and the genre is described as “mystical madness.” The feline theme would later become ubiquitous in her work.
Her first short stories were published in 2007 in Ukrainian Russian-language magazines Zhenikh I Nevesta (Bride and Groom) and Realnost Fantastiki (The Reality of Science Fiction). Later, some of her works were even published in Ukrainian, such as the children’s story The Frog for the Princess in 2009 and The Prince of the Steppe in the magazine Ukrayinskyi Fantastychnyi Ohliadach (Ukrainian Sci-Fi Observer) in 2011.
One of her former colleagues at Teleskop, who wished to remain anonymous, told Detector Media that working with Lebedynska was challenging due to her lack of experience and education.
“She wrote for the City section and was, to put it mildly, a poor journalist. She didn’t stand out for anything other than a few amusing incidents. Once, she was tasked with covering a routine decision by the Verkhovna Rada, but instead brought back a story that began with, ‘It seems that they will be raping left and right in Ukraine soon.’ She couldn’t understand why this was unacceptable.”
According to this former colleague, in Kyiv, Lebedynska began working for the newspaper Tviy Raion Pozniaky (Your District Pozniaky) and later contributed to glossy women’s magazines. “I don’t recall her openly displaying any political stance, but we all knew she was blatantly [pro-Russian]. Then she got into a relationship with Hlib Husakov, who owns a publishing house in Moscow and Donetsk. It’s clear it was due to him that she ended up in the Donbas.”
Another former colleague of Yuliana Lebedynska, who also agreed to comment anonymously, confirmed that when Lebedynska joined Teleskop, she lacked experience but eventually improved: “She wrote terribly, with mistakes, but over two years, she made significant progress. To me, she became an example of how, if someone genuinely wants to learn to write, they can succeed. Later, she moved to Kyiv, and by all accounts, she wrote quite well for glossy women’s magazines. Plus, we were friends on Facebook, and I read her posts — she had normal musings about life that were interesting to read.” Currently, Lebedynska’s page contains only a handful of posts, one video (in which the writer performs a belly dance), and no content dated earlier than 2020.
One of her former colleagues suggested that Lebedynska’s views may have been significantly influenced by her husband.
Yuliana Lebedynska’s husband, Hlib Husakov, is also a science fiction writer and publisher, much more prominent in the fantasy circles than his wife. Husakov, originally from Donetsk, is an advocate for the annexation of southern and eastern Ukrainian territories. (His LiveJournal page, where he once shared thoughts on the fate of Russian-occupied territories, has since been deleted.)
Husakov publishes his works under the pseudonym Yaroslav Verov but signs his social media posts as Ivan Terrakotov. He was the director of the Sozvezdiye Ayudag (Constellation Ayudag) science fiction festival and the Partenit literary seminar, both held in Crimea after the Russian annexation and continuing until 2019. Now, he is the “organizer and master of the Snezhnyi Kom literary seminar”, part of the eponymous publishing house he is the director of. Lebedynska has also published her works in this publishing house, as well as in Russia’s Eksmo and Shiko over the past few years.
According to the Russian site Ryzhyi Fest, Lebedynska moved to Donetsk in April 2021 after spending ten years as an editor of translated literature at the Azbuka-Atticus publishing house in Saint Petersburg. Currently, she serves as the “leading editor” at the Donetsk branch of the Snezhnyi Kom-Deti publishing house.
Yuliana Lebedynska and Hlib Husakov at the presentation of the Snezhnyi Kom-Deti publishing house at the Russian Center
Since 2022, the couple has reportedly been helping the “children of the Donbas” and those affected by the war. Lebedynska organizes meetings with children, distributes food packages and medicine, and, naturally, gifts countless copies of her books. Seventh-grade students were even tasked with crafting a felt kitten named Poof, the protagonist of Lebedynska’s books.
On social media, Yuliana and her husband host live-stream lectures for aspiring writers on how to write books. However, as Husakov admitted during an Instagram stream, “So far, no one has joined.”
Hlib Husakov and Yuliana Lebedynska
Donetsk Through the Looking Glass: Cats and Other Mystical Madness
According to the Russian website Laboratoriya Fantastiki, Yuliana Lebedynska is a multiple-time laureate of Moscow’s Bastkon literary award. She is also a member of the Russian Writers’ Union and the Writers’ Union of the occupied territories of the Donetsk region. While she stated in a video that her target audience was children aged 6 to 12 and that she didn’t understand how to write for teenagers aged 12–16, a year earlier, she wrote a play for adolescents titled Posmotri Na Etot Mir (Look at This World). This work made her a finalist in the propaganda contest Hero–Spring.2023, organized by Russia’s Tvorcheskaya Sreda Monolit (Monolith Creative Environment).
Yuliana Lebedynska among the jury members of the Uralskyi Knigokhod competition
In December 2024, Lebedynska participated in the project Kavkaz-Donbass: Skazochnyi Mostik (Caucasus-Donbas: Fairy Bridge), funded by Russia’s Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives. For this project, she wrote the story Prince of the Kalmeowus River. The title references the river Kalmius, which flows through Donetsk and Mariupol. The story takes place in a “country of magical cats located in Donetsk’s mirror world.” In the Kalmeowus River, there are “meow-jellyfish” with cat ears, and the underwater realm is ruled by the Prinse — a lilac-colored cat with a fishtail like a mermaid’s but covered in fur.
Books about another kitten, Poof, have already been printed and are distributed in schools and orphanages by Lebedynska. Incidentally, her husband, Hlib Husakov, is the editor of the first book about the kitten.
Lebedynska also writes feline-themed works for adults, including the piece Angel. Kot (Angel. Cat). Its synopsis reads: “Death no longer exists. People record their souls on chips and return to human form after three or four deaths, spending interim cycles as cacti, canaries, cats, or mice. Somewhere on the fringes of this world live family clans, outcasts who are raised not by machines but by actual living relatives.”
However, the author doesn’t limit herself to cats — she also writes about cockroaches in the head [idiom meaning mental issues]. In her book U Kazhnogo Svoi Tarakany, Ili Shagi Domoj (Everyone Has Their Own Cockroaches, or Steps Home), the main character is a “mental cockroach” named Gregory, who moves from one consciousness to another in search of a new home.
On the Russian website Livelib, another of Lebedynska’s books, titled Vne Konteksta (Out of Context), was found, complete with quotes teetering between rhetorical musings and graphomania.
Lebedynska has also co-authored a science fiction book with another writer, Ihor Veresnev, titled Arkhiv Pustoty (The Archive of Emptiness). Its plot revolves around an ecological catastrophe that has pushed the planet to the brink of extinction. To find a solution, the brightest minds on Earth gather in Crimea, inside the domed Science City. The city is inhabited only by scientists who are indifferent to the rest of the world’s population — the so-called “obdolby” [“junkies”], who “mindlessly consume legal stimulants, indulge in lowly entertainment, and loaf about.”
The storyteller hasn’t avoided the topic of war either. Her monodrama Do Magnolias Fear Shelling? was included in the 2024 anthology Slovesnost-2024 by the Russian Writers’ Union. She calls it autobiographical but refers to Donetsk, not Kharkiv, as her hometown. In the most sentimental passages of the work, Lebedynska echoes Russian propaganda. A translated excerpt from Russian (punctuation preserved): “I had to leave a peaceful and prosperous city to come here… to no-man’s land [from Kyiv to Donetsk]. You know, I could hardly speak my native language there anymore. I’m a hairdresser-stylist. One client made such a scene because I didn’t address her in the official language! My boss valued me, so nothing happened to me. But she strongly urged me to learn the language. Because of the new law and all that. At first, I still believed in their vaunted freedom of speech. Even in 2014, when it all started, I still believed… Thought I could speak about what hurt my soul. And be heard… So I said all sorts of things in support of the Donbas. Like, people have the right to make their own choices! And don’t insult my hometown. What I heard in response…”.
In the play, she writes that a familiar security services officer advised the protagonist to leave Kyiv because someone had filed a denunciation against her. Life in Donetsk is better, but there’s no work, no water, and explosions can be heard on the outskirts. Leaving for the “Mainland,” as she calls Russia, is a massive ordeal due to “checkpoints, customs, inspections, and traffic jams.” Later, the protagonist begins helping “unfortunate people in Mariupol” who have been left “homeless, without food.” She describes Donetsk residents receiving text messages from “non-local numbers” encouraging them to protest mobilization into the Russian army, but “few people took the bait.”
Apart from the language issue, the protagonist is naturally concerned with the theme of brotherly unity. She reflects on rewatching the New Year’s musical Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka: “You know, it’s so funny and sad to watch it now. Because the actors there are both Russian and Ukrainian. And they’re all performing together. So friendly…” She also recalls former Kyiv friends who criticize her choice to live in occupied Donetsk.
Lebedynska’s most recent stories were published in the 2024 anthologies Donbass—Russkiy Geroi (Donbas — the Russian Hero) and Yunyi Donbass (Young Donbas). The authors of these collections tour libraries, schools, and hospitals — here’s a link (if you can bear it) to see what exactly they tell their audiences. Among other things, they claim that “Ukrainian soldiers wrote ‘the best for the children’ on shells while intentionally targeting kindergartens.”
In an interview with the Russian media outlet bfm74.ru, Yuliana Lebedynska stated that she writes about how people live under daily shelling and expressed her desire to “introduce people from Great Russia to her plays.”
But what would her “plays” be like if she had spent even one day in her native city of Kharkiv, which the Russian army attacks almost daily with guided bombs, missiles, and drones? The worst part is that the insanity of this “author” is being promoted among children in the occupied territories — the most vulnerable audience, with limited access to quality literature, education, and information in general.
Collage by Mykola Shymanskyi, Detector Media
