From Ukrainian video to an editable transcript
Upload the video file as it is: MP4, MOV, M4V, WEBM, MKV, AVI or a phone screen recording. There is no need to convert it to audio first; the sound is taken out on our side and the timestamps stay aligned with the original video. If the video is on YouTube or TikTok, choose Import from link and paste the public link instead, and only the audio is fetched.
The transcript opens next to a video-length player. Click any line and playback jumps there, which is the quickest way to check a name, a place or a number that was said quickly. Corrections are saved as you type.
Ukrainian, Russian and surzhyk in one video
Many Ukrainian videos switch languages: an interview in Ukrainian with a guest who answers in Russian, or everyday speech in surzhyk, which mixes the two. The model writes what it recognises as the selected language, so Russian passages may come out partly in Ukrainian spelling or with Ukrainian letters such as і, ї and є where Russian would use и or е.
Keep Ukrainian selected when most of the video is in Ukrainian. If one long section is entirely in Russian, you can split the file and transcribe that part with Russian selected, or simply fix those lines in the editor. Auto-detect is in the menu, but it judges the opening seconds, and a video that starts with a Russian or English intro can send the whole file the wrong way.
Videos people transcribe in Ukrainian
Typical uploads include:
- News segments, Telegram video posts and YouTube interviews, for quotes and fact-checking.
- Recorded university lectures and online courses, for study notes.
- Video calls with family and testimonies recorded for archives, oral history or legal files.
- Your own YouTube or TikTok videos, to add Ukrainian subtitles and a text version for search.
- Webinars and team meetings recorded in Zoom, Google Meet or Teams.
Ukrainian subtitles: SRT and VTT
Export SRT or VTT to put Ukrainian subtitles on the video. Both formats are plain UTF-8 text, so Cyrillic shows correctly in YouTube Studio, Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, CapCut and VLC. Subtitle lines are cut from the timed transcript, so fix the text in the editor first and every corrected word carries into the subtitle file.
For a written record, export DOCX, PDF or TXT, with or without timestamps. CSV gives one row per line with its start time, which researchers use for coding interviews.
Accuracy and reading it in English
A clear voice with a decent microphone gives a good draft that needs a light read. Street interviews, music under the voice, air-raid sirens or several people talking at once lower the accuracy, and surnames and place names are the usual errors. Speaker labels for interviews and panels are available on paid plans and with a Minute Pack.
RocketScribe writes down the Ukrainian that was spoken. To read it in English, use the Google Translate link on the transcript, or the AI prompt export to ask ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini for a translation or summary. For audio-only recordings, see the Ukrainian audio to text page.