[2] Born in Okhtyrka, Sumy Oblast, Yana Kalinina got into professional sport by accident, when a friend asked her to play for her village football team, was spotted by selectors of the regional Sumy representative side, and then playing for them by Evgeny Pogorelov, coach of Ukrainian Women's League side Zhytlobud-2 Kharkiv (now Vorskla Poltava).
[3] This prompted Kalinina to be awarded the honorary title of "Master of Sports of Ukraine" in December 2014,[4] and showed her prowess once more in being top scorer in the Ukrainian Winter Championship, held in early 2015 in Uman.
Kalinina scored her 100th professional goal on 23 September 2018 against Panthers, joining the Ukrainian goalscoring hall of fame named after Svitlana Frishko.
In the title-winning 2019-2020 campaign, she once again became league top scorer with 17 goals, retaining her personal crown the following season with a haul of 22 as Zhytlobud-2 were dethroned as champions.
[2] Kalinin's hat-trick against Dnipro-1 on 1 September 2023 saw her become the first player to hit 200 league goals in the history of the Ukrainian Women's Championship.