Magnitsky Awards
Winner’s Bio

Yuliia Paievska

FOUNDER, VOLUNTEER AMBULANCE CORPS “TAIRA’S ANGELS”

Award Winner 2022

Courage Under Fire

Yuliia Paievska, known to many as “Taira”, is a founder of the volunteer ambulance corps “Taira’s Angels” after the start of the 2014 war in Ukraine.

Yuliia served as a volunteer street medic during the Euromaidan protests in 2013, then as a tactical medicine trainer on the front lines in Donbas from 2014 until 2018, where she founded “Taira’s Angels”, who are credited with saving hundreds of lives, including Ukrainian civilians, soldiers, separatist militants, and Russian soldiers.

Since February 2024, immediately after Putin’s regime started a full-scale war against Ukraine, Taira volunteered to serve in the Ukrainian Army. She was in charge a military hospital in Mariupol.

Yuliia Paievska with a body camera documented all atrocities during the Siege of Mariupol by Russian military invaders and smuggled and pass video archive international reporters on March 15, 2022. The next day, she and her ambulance driver were captured by Russians while assisting a wounded civilians surviving Mariupol theatre airstrike.