Olena Froliak

Olynea Yurievna Frolyak is a Ukrainian television personality, journalist, and news broadcaster. She is most well-known in Ukraine as the editor-in-chief and host of the popular news show Facts, on ICTV. She is a multiple-time winner of the Teletriumph Award, the national television awards of Ukraine. She is also an Honored Journalist of Ukraine. The magazine Focus named her one of the most influential women in Ukraine. Early life Olena Frolyak was born in the Zhovtnevy District of the Kostanay Region of the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, often referred to as "the virgin lands," where her parents had been sent as part of the Soviet Union’s development campaigns, a Soviet state program requiring young professionals to serve in designated regions.

According to Frolyak, the region had a harsh climate and agricultural landscape. One of her earliest recollections is of the blizzards during winter: “When I came home from kindergarten, I was frightened by the howling wind and would say, ‘Mom, quickly turn on the light!’”

As a newcomer unfamiliar with the language, she was referred to by the pejorative term “Moskal,” a label that was emotionally difficult for her, even though she did not initially understand its meaning. Nevertheless, within a month, she had acquired basic Ukrainian, speaking with the distinctive intonation and vocabulary of the Hutsul dialect.

While in high school, Frolyak was introduced to Lyudmila Gorodenko, the chief editor of the district newspaper Soviet Hutsulshchyna, with whom she formed a friendship. At 18 years old, in 1986, Frolyak joined the Soviet newspaper as a correspondent, and was trained directly by Gorodenko, who took Frolyak under her tutelage. She worked here as a correspondent in the department of letters until her graduation from university in 1992.

Froylak moved to Kyiv to attend the at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (referred to informally as narvisik, a slang term for journalism institutes), where she graduated with a degree in journalism.

Career in journalism

Regional and local television career Following graduation in 1992, Olena Frolyak chose to return to her native Ivano-Frankivsk, unlike many of her peers who sought careers in Kyiv. At the time, local television in Ivano-Frankivsk was just beginning to develop, and Frolyak’s pre-diploma internship there became an important formative experience. Later, Frolyak had planned a vacation to Israel to visit a friend, but just before leaving, she encountered Sergey Soloviov for a third time at the office, and they got into another conversation. When she returned from the trip, the two crossed paths once more, and Soloviov joked that the cost of her journey could have been better spent on a bottle of red wine they might have enjoyed together in Kyiv.

1996 had been a difficult period for Frolyak: her father had died, her mother was alone, and her brother was still in school. Similarly, Serhiy’s parents were aging. The wedding was therefore kept intimate and simple, with only around 30 close family members and friends in attendance. The couple used all their savings for the celebration and chose not to exchange wedding gifts. Frolyak wore a Ukrainian-designed wedding suit originally created for the visit of a foreign monarch, which she was able to rent for $150. Her husband came with her, and became a cameraman at ICTV. Other people that Mykola brought over to ICTV at this time include Oksana Sokolova, among others. The move was paralleled with broader transformations in Ukraine’s media landscape, which only several years after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union was just beginning to adopt more rigorous standards of news reporting and expanding its reach across the country. The ICTV newsroom featured an open studio design that was unparalleled in the post-Soviet media landscape at the time. The bold orange color scheme and modern presentation stood out in her mind, and later recounted to journalists thinking at the time that it symbolized and represented a fresh approach to television news. Despite arriving in the capital with strong credentials, including a university degree and internships at both CNN and the BBC, she found herself overwhelmed. "I was so anxious I couldn’t even smile at the end, the muscles in my face just locked up," she later recalled. "I will have to raise my daughter for a long time, but I know exactly what I want. I want Natalia to love books and sports, listen to Sting and understand Rachmaninov, dress stylishly, but not be an "acidic" fashionista, maybe be a housewife, but with the philosophy that "borscht for dinner is not the most important thing in life", be confident in herself, but not arrogant. I want her to impress with her mind, heart and beauty. And the most important thing she will receive from her father and mother is our love." Over time, the editorial team of the ICTV news program Facts gradually shifted from a male-dominated environment to one composed mostly of women. Frolyak looked at her phone, and realized that she couldn't refuse: Pinchuk had called her directly. At the same time, she also realized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and immediately returned to the office in order to fulfill the request, stating later that she would have accepted regardless of which campaign extended the invitation. Frolyak lacked a timer after her phone lost power from a flood of birthday messages. She ultimately used a spare phone lent to her by Dmytro Razumkov to keep time. Despite the pressure, she successfully completed the broadcast, later recalling the experience as intensely stressful and almost surreal. At the end of the debate, Zelenskyy publicly wished her a happy birthday, and led the entire stadium crowd to join in singing Mnohaya lita (the Ukrainian version of Happy Birthday) to Frolyak. Frolyak insisted that the appointment would not interfere with her main journalistic duties, though it added a new line of responsibility to her well-organized schedule.

Traveling across Northern Europe with a camera crew, Frolyak aimed to show Ukrainian audiences how sustainable lifestyles can be achieved. She tried to highlight examples such as Stockholm’s use of biogas-powered public transport and called for increased environmental responsibility within Ukraine. She also referenced research from Harvard University, shared by the UN, linking global pandemics to environmental degradation, reinforcing the urgency of ecological reform. She also described her entire house shaking "like the house was walking about." Frolyak quickly got behind the wheel of her car and evacuated with her mother, a friend, and their dog, leaving behind her son’s jacket and many belongings, heading toward the Ivano-Frankivsk region. Her husband remained in Kyiv. The journey took 36 hours, and after arriving, she began to feel conflicted about having left the capital. She started leading teams of young people to dismantle homes destroyed by bombs in the Chernihiv region. In the evenings, they would have disco nights, and would repeat the process the next day.

At the initiative of Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Facts joined the Telemarathon network of networks, which the majority of the Ukrainian population supported at the time. However, some people in Ukraine have recently called Telemarathon nothing more than an institution of the state, and its viewership has steadily declined without any consenting voices seen on the station. Froylak has expressed her own worry that the image of both ICTV and Facts has been tarnished, after decades of building up a trustworthy brand with the Ukrainian population. She said:“Every day we make use of many opportunities: we go about our daily routines, we work, we rest, we walk in the park. Ultimately, each day we are given the most important opportunity — to live fully. We owe this to our defenders, to those who, for the third year in a row, are securing our tomorrow. There are also many patients who constantly need blood. Donating is the simplest and smallest thing we can do for them.”