The BBC has included Russian feminist poet and activist Daria Serenko and firefighter Sofia Kosacheva in its 2023 list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world that was revealed on Tuesday.
Daria Serenko is a feminist thinker and the author of two books of feminist and anti-war prose. She is also among the coordinators of Feminist Anti-War Resistance, one of Russia’s largest movements opposing the Kremlin’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine.
“Thank you to all of you who help me make things possible. It is you who are ‘inspiring and influential.’ And all lists are relative (though I am still flattered, of course),” Serenko wrote on her Instagram.
Sofia Kosacheva is a forest firefighter and the founder of a professional community dedicated to training volunteers to combat Russia’s ever-worsening wildfire problem.
To aid her work, Kosacheva has also created a Russian-language online database with information on preventing and controlling wildfires.
Serenko, who was branded a “foreign agent” by the Kremlin, and Kosacheva, a former collaborator with the now-banned environmental NGO Greenpeace Russia, are the only Russian women to appear on the list.
