Ukrainian Miss Europe representative complains about Russian harassment during contest

She wrote about this on Instagram.

Ukrainian Milena Melnychuk said that she had been harassed even before the beauty pageant began. Russians started calling her phone number, calling her a Nazi and accusing her of starting a war. 

"I was subjected to hate from Russians, they deleted my Instagram, called my personal number, threatened that they would find out where I was and kill me and my family. They called me a Nazi and a fascist. They threatened to launch missiles at my city and said that they had photoshopped my face into porn and posted it everywhere," Melnychuk said.

She said that already during the contest, she was forced to take a photo with a participant from Russia. 

"And when I aggressively refused, they threatened me and said I was stupid and didn't understand anything. The Russian woman always tried to sit next to me and take a picture on her own, even though I was constantly trying to hide from her. I have no complaints about her, she seemed normal as a person," the Ukrainian said.

She noted that the designer at Miss Europe specifically gave her and the contestant from Russia the same dresses, "so that we would look alike as friends." The choreographer of the contest put Melnychuk next to the Russian woman on stage. When the girl asked him to move her, he rudely replied that he did not care about the war. 

"During the very final, the same choreographer shouted 'khokhlushka' at me on stage. When I posted a story saying that I wanted to disqualify myself from the competition, the organisers started threatening me and even broke into my room with threats," the girl said.

She also posted a video of a contestant from Russia humiliating a contestant from Ukraine. After the final, the Belarusian woman also began shouting humiliating phrases at the entire bus, threatening and wishing death to the Ukrainian contestant's family.

"I would like to note that I have no complaints against the organisers and individual contestants. If I offended anyone with this video, I apologise. The competition was of a high level, but this is my own experience of being there," Melnychuk said.

She also added that this is "only 5% of the whole hell and trash".