Liudmyla Huseinova is an activist and public figure from the Donetsk Region, a human rights advocate, former civilian hostage who spent over three years in enemy captivity for her pro-Ukrainian stance.
A resident of the occupied Novoazovsk in the Donetsk Region, since the beginning of hostilities in the East in 2014, she helped displaced men and women, and later children from a non-evacuated boarding school in Prymorske, which was disbanded by the Russians: she regularly brought them clothes, shoes and Ukrainian books from the territory controlled by Ukraine. She also helped Ukrainian defenders who were then protecting Mariupol. During one of the meetings in Mariupol, she received as a token of gratitude a Ukrainian flag with the inscription “To the patriots of Novoazovsk” and signatures of the fighters of the Lviv Battalion. She managed to bring this flag to the occupied territory and hide it in her city. It is still there. In October 2019, militants detained Liudmyla at work and accused her of “espionage, extremism, terrorism, and calls to overthrow the state government of the ‘DPR’” based on denunciations by her acquaintances. At first, she was held in the infamous torture facility, the Isolation secret prison, and later in the Donetsk pre-trial detention centre. In total, the woman endured three years and 13 days of captivity.
On 17 October 2022, Liudmyla Huseinova was returned as part of a “women’s exchange”. Since then, she has been engaged in the issues of the release of civilian hostages who have fallen outside the scope of international humanitarian law, as well as the protection of the rights of survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. She worked as the Director of Communications of the specialised NGO SEMA Ukraine, is a member of it, and in December 2024 she initiated and headed the NGO Come On, Sisters!, aimed at uniting and supporting women who have suffered during the war.
In 2021, Liudmyla Huseinova was awarded the National Human Rights Award in absentia, which she received after her return from captivity.
