Sarah Ashton-Cirillo

Morning turned into afternoon. A scorching sun blanketed the concrete of the local sports hall belonging to the community of Zolochiv, a frontline village just minutes from the Russian border.

There, over the course of several hours, the International Committee for the Red Cross, with the help of local residents, unloaded over 20 tons of supplies for the besieged townsfolk. The town’s mayor, Viktor Kovalenko, who for the preceding five months valiantly rallied the community against Russian aggression, oversaw the delivery.

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An unassuming bisexual journalist who had returned to the city where she was born just days prior reported on the mission. Natalie Vikhrov shadowed Kovalenko and his team, covering the delivery and interviewing members of the community’s health, humanitarian, and security apparatuses. She was there, next to the mayor, as the Red Cross pulled away and the Russian rockets fell.

As Kovalenko barked out orders and headed into the bomb shelter to help lead the response against the early afternoon attack, she stayed by his side.

As a bisexual woman, Vikhrov has learned how to “make tough decisions.” Born in Kharkiv when Ukraine was still a part of the Soviet Union, Vikhrov’s working class parents made the decision to leave for Adelaide, Australia when she was 8 years old. As the USSR crumbled around them, her parents “wanted a better life for me and my sister.”

Now comfortable with using both queer or bisexual to describe her sexuality, in high school “it didn’t click,” for her that she was sexually different in any way.

“We didn’t have the access to the resources and communities that we have now, as a teenager in Adelaide I didn’t feel I had access to anything that helped me figure out my sexuality,” Vikhrov told LGBTQ Nation.

Coming out “gradually” in her mid 20’s, Vikhrov also found her career goals change in the last year of college when a professor suggested she look into journalism as a profession. She began to pursue a master’s degree in Journalism, eventually taking a position with The Bunyip, a South Australian newspaper.

Remaining with them for almost five years, covering local community and political affairs, the daughter of both Ukraine and Australia “always wanted to cover international news and foreign affairs, but it felt like a distant dream.”

Although coming from Kharkiv and speaking Russian at home as a child, Vikhrov didn’t “have many memories of my childhood in Kharkiv” and ultimately felt “more Australian than Ukrainian.”

Then in 2014 the Maidan Uprising swept across Ukraine, Vikhrov got her first “taste of reporting on foreign affairs” when she left Australia for London to report on the story. With support from the paper, she moved there in 2015. In London, for the first time, she came out as bisexual, moving past the transitory wording of “bicurious.”

For Vikhrov there just wasn’t ”a reason to come out earlier.”

“Not every person’s experience is linear,” she said. “When people know their sexuality quite clearly, it is a different experience than being bisexual. For me [labels] are to explain to the world that I’m interested in both men and women. It’s just to notify people that I date women too. It’s more for other people, but labeling myself is for the outside world vs anything it did for my own self.”

“You continue the process of coming out with every new person you meet, and every new place you go. It’s completely valid for people to understand their sexuality and explore it.”

Vikhrov’s journey accelerated in the middle of 2016 when she made the leap from London to Kyiv, taking employment with the Kyiv Post, and bringing her back to live in her native nation for the first time since she left more than two decades prior.

Once she had full-time employment in Ukraine secured, Vikhrov began to look more closely at the LGBTQ community in Ukraine and “felt there was a gap in coverage.”

“I wanted to fill that gap,” she said, so she became a freelancer. It allowed her to explore the trials, tribulations, and victories of Ukrainians who weren’t as commonly visible in the media.

Having seen friends get physically hurt at the hands of anti-LGBTQ activists over the years, Vikhrov is “quite aware that there is still work to be done” for queer acceptance but acknowledges that “Ukraine needs to focus efforts on the war at the moment.”

Three days after the full-scale invasion commenced, she left the capital for Moldova before arriving in London once more, noting she “didn’t have security, a driver, a team behind me. I’m a freelancer on my own.” Yet, once more she returned to Ukraine, arriving again in May.

Why did she come back?

“I did it because it’s my job and because it was something I felt I need to do. I’ve been covering this country for years and I wanted to show what was happening here, what Ukrainians were going through.”

She then shared what has been the key driver of her life’s philosophy, and what originally led her overseas.

“I believe in approaching things that scare you, and part of why I ended up here was because I took a direction that scared me, and that’s important.”

Their lineage dates back to the days of the Soviet Union; operating under the name “Memorial” it was the first human rights group recognized by the USSR. Now more than 30 years and one name change later, Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group (KHPG) continues its mission of protecting freedom, the disenfranchised, and minority groups throughout Ukraine.

While Ukrainian forces have been battling Russian fascism for almost a decade, KHPG’s responsibilities have rapidly evolved since February 24, when Russia’s full-scale invasion started and the nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, declared martial law.

A portfolio of work that includes pushing freedom of speech claims, fighting government discrimination, and lobbying for laws that increase liberty for all Ukrainians, has been expanded to include investigating war crimes carried out by the marauding Russian army.

Upon his return to the group’s namesake city after months of displacement, KHPG press director, Denys Volokha, sat down with LGBTQ Nation to discuss the organization’s long history, its newest mission, and why the war has been helpful for queer rights in Ukraine.

Slight, with an air of heavy wisdom, and a whisp of chin hair, Volokha twice attempted to sign up to fight for his country; both times he was told to focus on his civilian work. Now three years into his stint as the media guru of KHPG, the 22-year-old wunderkind’s patriotic fervor is matched by his ardent support of free speech and dedication to the rule of law.

Near the beginning of our conversation, Volokha brought up an issue previously reported by LGBTQ Nation that KPHG is currently focused on. In the Mariupol area, investigators working with KPHG found that the marauding forces used hunt lists to subjugate, capture, and in some cases murder, Ukrainians who were deemed high-value enemies. When asked if that included the LGBTQ community, Volokha, refused to confirm exactly who was on the lists, but did say it wouldn’t be a “surprise” if they included LGBTQ people who were out.

Moving further into the realm of LGBTQ casework by KHPG, the young crusader shared several case files with LGBTQ Nation. Each held its own set of horrors.

One event, in 2021, took place in an eastern Ukrainian city.  A man identified as “T” encountered the local police. Upon telling them he was a member of the LGBTQ community they proceeded to sit on his shoulders and twist his arms, pinning him face down on the floor until he lost consciousness. The injuries T received resulted in his hospitalization. Upon his release, harassment from the police continued, and that’s when KHPG stepped in, bringing T’s complaint, including a victim’s statement, to the State Bureau of Investigation for an independent review of the police brutality.

Another matter involved an attack on a transwoman, by three known assailants. The beating was so bad that the victim required medical treatment and, almost immediately after, filed a police report. Records show that despite receiving the woman’s affidavit, investigators sat on the case. Eventually, after the curious inactivity and significant lapse in time had passed, KHPG took the matter directly to the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as to the state prosecutor. After months of motions and procedural issues, the court ruled in favor of KHPG’s client, finding that the investigator’s inaction was negligent, and the prosecution resumed.

Discussing how life will change for the queer community after the war in light of Ukraine’s past reputation of neglecting or persecuting queer citizens, Volokha was hopeful.

The afternoon he sat down to speak with us, word came that President Zelenskyy would have to address a petition demanding that Ukraine recognize same-sex marriage.  When asked if he felt that the President and lawmakers would try to use regulations under martial law to sidestep it, Volokha suggested that “this is a moment for Ukraine to show Europe we belong to the EU, to the international community.”

When pressed on it, Volokha was confident that one of the few positive outcomes of the devastating war, would be a lasting commitment by Ukraine to drag those living in the reactionary past into a future where all are welcome.

Born nearly 10 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, and his nation’s declaration of independence, Volokha revealed himself not so much as an activist for gay rights, or minority inclusion, as a classical liberal steeped in the words, and thoughts, of men who came centuries before him.

Waxing poetically several times about the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and how free speech should, in his words, “never be abridged,” Volokha is prepared to lead the fight for every Ukrainian’s civil rights in the face of Russia’s invasion and Putin’s fascist propaganda.

As the conversation ended, Volokha insisted KPHG isn’t the Ukrainian version of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“No,” he said, “We appreciate America, and what it stands for, but we are Ukraine’s voice for liberty.”