Ukrainian model, singer, and presenter Dasha Astafieva, who will read the Radio Dictation of National Unity this year, responded ironically to a wave of hate from the "Constitutional Court of Facebook with the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Threads Court" and supplemented her post with vivid and striking photos, reports UNN.
It was announced that I would read the Radio Dictation of National Unity 2026, and I was hit by an avalanche of hate. There were many complaints. For example, why is my name Dasha and not Odarka? Is that really appropriate, people asked; can Dasha's mouth pronounce such authentically Ukrainian words as "dziga," "thunderstorm," and "it feels like God is punishing us for something"? Outrageous. "Next year, let's invite some Jessica as well—we'll spit deliciously into the roots of orthography." I have to change my name, and only then will the Constitutional Court of Facebook with the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Threads Court consider whether I am suitable for them
According to her, users also disliked the fact that she posed for Playboy 20 years ago.
Is a woman from the cover of a magazine that classmates secretly passed around to one another during breaks really worthy of "uniting" anyone? On the contrary, she is associated with solitude by everyone!
The model adds: "They wrote that I am young and beautiful, so people would be distracted from the dictation—that's abnormal. And that I am old and unattractive, that it is time for me to buy a blood-pressure monitor rather than play around—that's abnormal. Bald men older than me wrote this."
There was outrage that I had spoken Russian (people like me generally fall under the Inquisition) and sung in a band (they suggested I sing and dance the dictation, preferably naked). They were offended that the dictation was being turned into a show, while it is not a game but a serious matter! They were angry that I would be appearing in a duet with Ukrainian language and literature teacher Artur Proidakov—why am I needed there? "Let's make it a trio or quartet too, and fill a stadium with readers!" "The dictation is very serious," a teacher with flowers in her profile picture writes on Facebook, "don't you understand?!" Before my eyes appeared frightened children wiping sweat from their foreheads with an eraser during PE class. Of course, the dictation should become a serious challenge for all of us, not a game. After all, we live with you in a world of heavenly ponies that, instead of trolleybuses, take us not to work but to a blue oasis with blossoming apricot trees and date palms
According to her, the hysteria over the fact that the dictation will be read by someone who voices audiobooks is some new level of absurdity.
I invite everyone who wants to prove that I am not in the right place, and everyone who simply wants to write the dictation traditionally (or for the first time), to watch the broadcast on October 27 at 11:00 on the YouTube channels of Ukrainian Radio and Suspilne. Get out your double sheets of paper
We remind you
This year, the author of the text for the Radio Dictation of National Unity 2026 was writer and veteran of the Russian-Ukrainian war Artur Dron, while the readers will be Ukrainian language and literature teacher Artur Proidakov and public figure and volunteer Dasha Astafieva.