Nataliia Bratus graduated in 1982 with a degree in metallurgical engineering in her hometown of Dnepropetrovsk (now Dnipro), Ukraine, the Soviet Union. She worked as a defectoscopist engineer for ten years before becoming a private entrepreneur after Ukraine declared independence. She escaped the war in Ukraine with her daughter, grandson, and two family pets in March 2022, and immediately began working with John Freedman on translations of Ukrainian dramatic texts. She helped translate 14 texts in A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War: 20 Short Works by Ukrainian Playwrights (Laertes Press, 2023), 11 texts in Traumaturgy, 13 Texts by Ukrainian Playwrights | from the Front Lines, and has contributed to 55 other translations
in John Freedman's Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings project.