Elena Milashina
Elena Milashina is a Russian investigative journalist for Novaya Gazeta. In October 2009, she was awarded Human Rights Watch's Alison Des Forges Award for Extraordinary Activism.Biography
Elena Milashina was born on October 28, 1977 in the city of Dalnegorsk, Primorsky Krai. She studied at a school in the city of Amursk. In 1994–95, she took part in the FLEX exchange program, this helped her to further enter the Moscow State University.
In 1997, Elena Milashina began working as a reporter and journalist for Novaya Gazeta, while studying at the same time. One of her mentors was Anna Politkovskaya. In 2000, Elena Milashina published a series of materials on the Kursk nuclear submarine disaster, for which she received the Golden Pen of Russia award from the Journalists Union of Russia in the Journalistic Investigations category. In 2001 she graduated from the Faculty of Journalism of Moscow State University.
The areas of professional interest of Elena Milashina include corruption, human rights violations in the North Caucasus and Chechnya, in particular, the investigation of the terrorist act in Beslan, the murders of Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, and the conflict in South Ossetia. In October 2009, Elena Milashina became the laureate of the annual prize of the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch .
She continues investigations started by her colleague Anna Politkovskaya, who was assassinated in Moscow in 2006, and her own independent investigations into occurrences in the North Caucasus.
In the early morning of April 5, 2012, Milashina, along with her friend Ella Asoyan, was attacked by two unknown assailants in the Balashikha neighborhood of Moscow.
In 2013, Elena Milashina was given an International Women of Courage Award.
While visiting Grozny, Chechnya on February 6, 2020, to attend a trial, Milashina and human rights lawyer Marina Dubrovina were attacked and beaten by unknown female assailants at the lobby of the Kontinental hotel.
