This episode explores human rights in relation to Russia’s full-scale aggression on Ukraine. How do accountability gaps play a role in restorative justice? And what are effective approaches for documenting losses and war crimes so they can be brought to court? Listen for an analysis of the current war in Ukraine and the prospects for addressing human rights violations.
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Glossary
Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity
(05:36 or p.2 in the transcript)
On November 21, 2013, one and a half thousand people rallied through social networks. They took to the Independence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) to express their protest against pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych’s refusal to sign the association agreement between Ukraine and the European Union. At the same time, people in different cities of Ukraine gathered every day and organized events in support of European integration. On the night of November 29-30, about 400 activists, mostly students, remained on the streets of Kyiv. Armed fighters of the former police unit of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine called “Berkut” forced people out of the square. They used explosive packages, beating people with batons and stomping them with their feet. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the center of Kyiv on December 1, 2013, to protest the forceful dispersal of peaceful protesters. Due to the European integration slogans, the events were called Euromaidan. This turned into a struggle for the renewal of the state system, the defense of democratic ideas, and the refusal to submit to the pro-Russian regime. The struggle became known as the Revolution of Dignity. Protesters occupied the building of the Kyiv City State Administration (KMDA) and the House of Trade Unions, where the Headquarters of the National Resistance were located. Independence Square and nearby streets were filled with protesters. Euromaidan activists began to set up tent cities, surrounded by barricades and several roadblocks. On December 8, 2013, the “March of Millions” took place in Kyiv, a public event with over a million participants. Activists decided to block the Presidential Administration and Government buildings. On the night of December 10-11, “Berkut” and units of internal forces launched an assault to disperse peaceful protesters. The impetus for the escalation of the confrontation was the adoption of “dictatorship laws” by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on January 16, 2014. They limited the rights of citizens and expanded the powers of special officers to punish participants in protest actions. On January 19, Euromaidan started a move to prepare an open-ended picket of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The march met with units of internal troops and special units of “Berkut” on Hrushevsky Street — clashes began that lasted all night. Armed security forces used stun grenades and rubber bullets, as well as a water cannon, against the demonstrators. Euromaidan activists wore construction helmets, and they threw cobblestones and Molotov cocktails at the police. On January 22, 2014, another illegal decision was made to extend the powers of the security forces that acted against Euromaidan participants. They were allowed to use light noise and smoke grenades delivered from the Russian Federation. On this day, for the first time during the Revolution of Dignity, two activists – Armenian Serhii Nigoyan and Belarusian Mykhailo Zhiznevskyi – died from gunshot wounds on Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv. Hundreds were injured by rubber bullets, debris, and chemical burns. At the end of January, the uprising spread to other regions of Ukraine. Protesters occupied administrative buildings, and they removed pro-Russian heads of state administrations from their positions. On February 18, 2014, activists marched to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, where deputies were supposed to consider changes to the Constitution of Ukraine. Activists called on the parliament to return the Constitution of 2004, according to which the political system of Ukraine was supposed to become parliamentary-presidential again, which reduced the possibilities for usurpation of power. The peaceful offensive turned into mass clashes between the Euromaidan and security forces. The Berkut police special unit dispersed the demonstrators on the approaches to the parliament and began an assault on the Maidan. On this day, more than 20 Euromaidans were killed with firearms. The events of February 20, 2014, on Instytutska Street in Kyiv entered the modern history of Ukraine as “Bloody Thursday”. On this day, snipers killed 48 Euromaidans. On the same day in 2014, Russia began the occupation of Crimea, and in the spring they invaded Eastern Ukraine. Eight years later, in 2022, the Russian Federation launched a full-scale invasion. source
Shalini Randeria (SR): Welcome to a new episode of "Democracy in Question," the podcast series that explores the challenges that democracies are facing around the world. I'm Shalini Randeria, Rector and President of Central European University in Vienna and Senior Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Center on Democracy at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. This is the fourth episode of Season 8 of "Democracy in Question."
It's a great pleasure and an honor to welcome today Oleksandra Matviichuk, one of the best-known civil society leaders in Ukraine today. She's a human rights lawyer and heads the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv, which was the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Since then, Oleksandra has also served as the Vice President of the International Federation of Human Rights. In 2013, she coordinated the Euromaidan SOS initiative, which was set up to provide legal assistance to the victims of state repression during the protests against the regime then. In 2021, Oleksandra was nominated to the United Nations Committee Against Torture.
Between 2014 and '22, she was already involved in the documentation of war crimes in the Donbas region, where Russia has been supporting separatist militias since over a decade. In 2016, she received the first Democracy Defender Award of the OSCE for exclusive contribution to promoting democracy and human rights.
It's a rare treat to host a human rights activist of Oleksandra's stature on the podcast. How I wish our conversation, however, was not overshadowed by the second anniversary of Russia's large-scale war against Ukraine. Ukrainians have been fighting a heroic battle to defend their country's independence, its sovereignty, and restore its territorial integrity since February 24, 2022.
But let's recall also that already then the eastern part of the country had been embroiled in a military conflict against the Russian military for eight years. Since the full-scale Russian aggression two years ago, the civilian population in Ukraine has been subjected to enormous suffering. As Oleksandra will explain, it'll thus be crucial to find appropriate forms of restorative justice and reparations. This may even call for significant institutional innovations in the architecture of international law, as well as searching for ways to overcome what she has referred to as accountability gaps. I will ask her to analyze also the current situation and share her thoughts about the prospects for peace. The Ukrainian counteroffensive seems to have stalled at the moment, and so a protracted war of positions is increasingly likely for the foreseeable future.
Shifting geopolitical priorities of Western allies and also some frustration with the timing and distribution of logistical, financial, military support for Ukraine also gives cause for concern. How likely is a negotiated settlement and a compromise with Putin's regime, given the lack of trust in Russia abiding by the terms of any eventual treaty? Are domestic political tensions in Ukraine eroding the sense of national unity and purpose, which has so far admirably fueled the country's war effort? I look forward to discussing with Oleksandra Matviichuk some of these difficult questions about the present and the future of Ukraine.
As the example of Ukraine shows, democracy is called into question by its enemies, who are willing to wage a prolonged war to further autocratic rule. What is at stake in Ukraine is the defense of democracy, of national sovereignty, and of international law. Oleksandra, a warm welcome to the podcast, and many, many thanks for joining me today.
Oleksandra Matviichuk (OM): Thank you for invitation.
SR: In an interview where you shared your memories about forging connections with an older generation of dissidents during your student days, you mentioned that there are stories of resistance instilled in you in your early years, the sense that a person must fight for freedom and defend human dignity, simply because, as you put it, “this is what makes us human”. It was this moral imperative that soon led you to focus your legal studies on human rights as a tool of empowerment, as a tool of resistance.
And after graduating in 2007, you immediately joined the Center for Civil Liberties, which you have chaired since then. What are the key areas of the work of the Center that you have focused on since 2007, and what important changes and challenges has the Center faced in the last 15 years? Ukraine has changed a lot during the time you took office at the Center, from ex-president Yanukovych's increasingly autocratic rule, followed by a really exhilarating period of the Euromaidan, which I was privileged to witness in person then, and the Revolution of Dignity in 2014. And since then, a decade of Russian military aggression, starting with the unlawful annexation of Crimea.
OM: When we created the Centre for Civil Liberties in 2007, we were concentrated on human rights education. And there is a clear reason for such choice. Because when we speak about democratic transition, it's not enough to adopt quality laws and build formal institutions. Values of society always prevail. And values of society are an energy which provide opportunity for laws and institutions to work right and properly. So that is why we conducted a lot of educational programs on human rights and democracy for different audiences. We work with youth, we work with local authorities, we work with state servants, we work with civil society leaders, etc.
One of unique features of Centre for Civil Liberties is that we always try and massively involve ordinary people into human rights work. And we always try and very flexibly react to the changing context. And it’s no surprise that during the Revolution of Dignity, we became the one single window for each persecuted protester throughout the country, regardless of the fact that before (that) we have never provided legal consultations.
So we created a civil initiative, the Euromaidan SOS, as a response on brutal dispersal of peaceful student demonstration on Maidan. We united several thousands of people. And we started to work 24 hours a day to provide legal and other assistance. And that was a time when every day hundreds of people who were arrested, tortured, accused and (against whom) fabricated criminal cases (were brought) passed through our care.
We also became the first human rights organization who sent mobile groups to Crimea and Luhansk and the Donetsk region when the war started. Because you're totally right. This war started not in February 2022, but in February 2014 when the authoritarian regime collapsed and Ukraine obtained the chance for the quick democratic transformation due to Revolution of Dignity.
And in order to stop us on this way, Russia started this war of aggression, occupied Crimea, part of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and in 2022, extended this war to the large-scale invasion. Since this time, we document Russian war crimes and seek justice for victims affected by this war. In parallel, we try to help in conducting democratic reforms in Ukraine and build sustainable democratic institutions. Because victory for Ukraine is not just to repeal Russian troops out and restore international order and release people in Crimea, in Luhansk, Donetsk, and other temporarily occupied regions, but (it) also means to succeed in (a) democratic transition.
SR: Oleksandra, can you say something about the challenges that you are facing? Because human rights defenders are facing challenges everywhere. But in Ukraine, you are in a context of a large-scale war of aggression against your country. And in that climate, to try to talk about human rights is probably even more difficult than to be defending human rights elsewhere in conditions of relative peace and stability. So, what are the specific challenges you have been facing over the last two years in a country where civilians are being bombarded, where there is daily destruction through Russian bombs, drones’ attacks?
OM: The large-scale war, it's a huge disruptor, and I'm still lacking the proper words to describe this experience. And this is extremely hard, not just from professional point of view, but from personal point of view, because everything which we call normal life disappeared in one second, like the possibility to go to work, to meet with your friends in a cafe, to hug your beloved ones, and to have family dinner. Everything was crushed, and now we live in total uncertainty because you can't plan not just your day, but your next several hours. You never know when the new Russian air attack (can) start. And also it means that you live in constant fear for your beloved ones who joined the Ukraine armed forces, or who, even in the deep rear areconstantly being shelled by Russian rockets.
And from a professional point of view, it's difficult, because we're faced with an unprecedented number of Russian war crimes. There is a clear explanation for this, because Russia uses war crimes as the method of fear. Russia attempts to break people’s resistance and occupy Ukraine by inflicting immense pain on civilian population. So we document this pain.
And from the first years of the war, I personally interviewed hundreds of people who survived Russian captivity, who told me how they were beaten, raped, smashed into wooden boxes, electrically shocked through their genitalia, and their fingers were cut, their nails were drilled. So, it's difficult to work constantly with such horrible stories, because when you document human pain, very often you have a feeling that this pain is burning you out. And the general context is very difficult, because (of) a lot of pain, a lot of trauma. Millions of Ukrainians suffered during this large-scale war. And war, it's poison itself, because it provides a lot of negative transformations in society.
SR: let me ask you about one particular aspect, Oleksandra, of the war of aggression, which is: how to deal with the crime of aggression in international law. In 2022, I hosted on my podcast Mykola Gnatovskyy, whom you, of course, know. He's a Ukrainian jurist now sitting on the European Court of Human Rights. And he was one of the original proponents, together with the foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, and others, of setting up a special tribunal to investigate the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
They advocated establishing a special court because war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, of which the Russian army is clearly guilty too, could be in principle investigated by the International Criminal Court. But the ICC has no jurisdiction over the category of crimes of aggression, that is, waging a fundamentally unlawful war against the principles of the UN Charter. Could you explain the rationale for setting up the special court, and where are we now in the process of setting it up?
OM: We're faced with (an) accountability gap because, as you rightly mentioned before, there is no international court which can prosecute Putin and top political leadership and high military command of the Russian state for the crime of aggression. And all the atrocities which we are now documenting, it's a result of their leadership decision to start this war. If we want to prevent wars in the future, we have to punish states and their leaders who start such wars.
So that is why, in order to fill this gap, we have to create a special tribunal, especially taking into account that during the whole history of humankind, we have only one precedent when authoritarian leaders were punished for the crime of aggression. And this was (at the) Nuremberg trial in (the) past century, which was (an) essential step to establish law and justice, but it was a court of winners. They judged Nazi war criminals whose regime had collapsed. And we live in a new century. That is why we try to convince political leaders that there is no necessity to wait. Justice must be independent of the magnitude of Putin's regime's power and when and how this war will end. We cannot wait. We must establish a special tribunal on aggression now and hold responsible people for the crime of aggression.
SR:Have we got any closer to the establishment of the tribunal since they issued the appeal two years ago?
OM: We had a very significant first step. Last year, the International Centre of Prosecutors who investigate the crime of aggression was established in The Hague, and five countries delegated their prosecutors to this Centre. So, this means that it can be a preliminary step to establish a special tribunal, and when such a court will conduct it, there is no necessity to wait for investigation because such interventional investigation is already going on. But we have to push to have such a step. And the problem is that still we have no consensus, and still we have a lack of bravery and historical responsibility of leaders to start all legal process against Vladimir Putin and his surroundings while their regime has not collapsed yet.
SR: If I remember rightly, two years ago, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva did establish a commission of inquiry on Ukraine. Can you say something about the workings and the findings of the commission so far?
OM: We work very closely with the members of International Commission on Inquiry, and they made a very significant job. They investigate and analyze different types of crimes in different regions of Ukraine and provide very comprehensive reports on this regard. For example, they were the first who told that this deliberate attack to the energy system in Ukraine, which Russia conducted one year ago in order to deprive millions of Ukrainians of electricity, heating, light, water, and connection during the winter, it's a crime against humanity. And this was a very important assessment, and future court procedures will take into account their reports and this qualification.
SR: So let me turn to another aspect of your work, which you just mentioned, which is the documenting of the human rights violations as they have been occurring during the last years. You've documented tens of thousands of war crimes committed over the last two years and even before that. So therefore, you're aware of another kind of painful accountability gap, not only involving the Russian leaders but also the fact that the court proceedings, international court proceedings, can be very slow and they can take very long to come to the conclusions about these crimes.
But the International Criminal Court, for example, will only consider - when it does - a select number of cases as representative examples. National courts, in theory, could, of course, consider each individual war crime, which you have been documenting. But it probably won't be possible given the lack of time, given the lack of resources, and the scarce personnel in the legal system.
So the other gap that I'd like you to talk about is, in a way, the unbridgeable gap between the traumatic experiences of individual lives which have been destroyed by this war, and the limited capacity which national and international restorative justice systems have. You formulated this extremely powerfully in an interview when you said, and I quote you, that "the victims of war need to restore not just their broken lives, broken families, broken vision of the future, but their broken beliefs that justice is possible, even though delayed."
How can such a sense of justice be effectively translated into juridical practice under the conditions that you are facing, and people can then regain their faith in the power of law to overcome the brute force of a war and an aggression that they are facing from a very powerful and well-resourced enemy?
OM: You describe the problem very well. I just want to add several numbers to emphasize the scale of this problem. When (the) large-scale invasion started, we united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions. We built a national network of documentators in order to document each criminal episode which was committed in the smallest settlement in each oblast in Ukraine. And working together, we jointly documented and contributed to the Tribunal database more than 62,000 episodes of war crimes. And 62,000 is enormous amount, but still a tip of iceberg.
Only officially, Ukrainian Office of General Prosecutors opened more than 120,000 criminal cases, which is obvious even for people who are not lawyers that it's impossible to investigate properly in accordance to all requirements of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights more than 100,000 cases, even for the best national system in the world. The Ukrainian system is not the best national system in the world. And you rightly mentioned that we can't rely on International Criminal Court because it limits their investigation only to several selected cases. And 98 percent of criminal investigations will be a burden of responsibility of Ukrainian national system.
So, what we can do when we're faced with this dimension of this accountability gap? We have to put a right goal. I have a feeling that we as a humankind don't understand that our level of capacity to investigate and to deliver justice is much higher than we had before. What do I mean? We have digital instruments which provide us opportunity to restore what's happened, to collect evidence, to identify perpetrators when we couldn’t even dream (about) 30 years ago during the Balkans War.
The work of Bellingcat and other investigators convincingly proves that in order to understand what's happened and to restore picture of events, there is no necessity for you even to be in the spot. So technically, now it's possible to investigate each criminal proceeding using these digital technologies. And this is not a situation we had before when the war resulted in numerous crimes and it was a sad normal that the majority of victims had no chance for justice.
So, we have to set this ambitious goal and to change the global approach to war crime justice and start to fight for justice for each person affected by the war, regardless who these persons are, their social position, the types of crime they endured, and whether or not media or international organizations are interested in their cases. Because we always say that the life of each person matters. So, we have to make it our real policy.
And I worked with victims of this war directly and I know that they see justice very differently. For some people, justice means to see their perpetrators behind the bars. For other people, justice means to get compensations. And without this, they will feel unsatisfied. For other people, justice means to know (the) truth, what happened with their beloved ones. And for other people, justice means to have (the) opportunity to be heard and to get official recognition that something which happened with them and their families is not just immoral but illegal, which means that we have to create the comprehensive justice strategy and to build the appropriate infrastructure for this strategy with different institutions who can fulfill different needs of the victims.
SR: Oleksandra, let me ask you about one particular aspect, which is a horrendous aspect of this war. It's not only patently immoral, but it's also illegal, and which is the abduction of Ukrainian children. Could you say something about the fate of these thousands of children who have been abducted by the Russians and how at least some of them have been located and even brought back to their families in Ukraine, and what is being done to bring back these children as soon as possible?
OM: It's a very painful problem because children are one of the most vulnerable groups during the wars. And only officially Ukrainian authorities recorded and identified more than 19,000 of Ukrainian children who were illegally deported to Russia. And this is not just war crimes. This is a part of a genocidal policy of Russia itself. These children were put in so-called re-education camps where Ukrainian children were told that they are not Ukrainian children by Russian children. And then they are prepared for the forcible adoption in Russian families, regardless of the fact that some of these children have relatives and even parents who are waiting for them in Ukraine.
So it's a real horror what's going on because Ukraine has no legal tools to stop this practice, which means that we have to be creative to find a solution even in a situation when Russia ignores all provisions of international humanitarian law or decision of international organizations.
Let me tell you one story of a child in one (of the) occupied territories, which was told to me by my friends who are originally from this town. This child was going to school. And now in this town, they have to start all classes in school with singing the Russian national song. And this child never participates in the singing. And once he was asked by teacher, why you don't sing with others? And the child respond that, "I don't know the words of Russian national song." And teacher told, "What's the problem? Go home and learn it by heart and then return."
So next day, when this child came to school, (the) teacher asked him to start to sing this song. And instead of singing Russian national song, this child started to sing Ukrainian national song. And why I told this story, if Ukrainian children in occupied territories, in re-education camps, in Russian adoptive families finding the strength to continue their nonviolent resistance, we as adults really have no excuse not to find a way to help them to return.
SR: To just understand the background to this situation, so are families trying to trace the children who have been abducted into Russia on their own? Or are there organizations in Ukraine who have taken this up despite all the legal limitations and are able to help these children come back? What I was reading in some newspaper reports was that even some of the Russian citizens are helping these children to return.
OM: There are Ukrainian organizations who work with parents and their relatives of abducted children to help to return them back. And there are Russian human rights organizations and independent volunteer initiatives who also try to help them to return to their families. But the problem is that there is no single mechanism, and only 400 of such children were returned since the large-scale invasion started.
SR: Only 400 children out of the 19,000 have returned so far. So the problem remains. Let me ask you about another aspect of the war situation and how to deal with the trauma of the war, and that is about memorialization. You have been documenting in great detail the effects and the sufferings and the human rights violations. What is the view that human rights lawyers like yourself, civil society activists have about how to memorialize this so that it just doesn't remain an individual suffering, but there can be some form of collective grieving over the situation which people have been facing since years?
OM: The millions of Ukrainians are suffering, and the Russian war crimes deliberately target civilian people. As I mentioned, it's a way how the Russians want to win this war, to provide enormous suffering to civilians, so that people in Ukraine have no strength and energy to continue their resistance to Russian occupation. And that is why for us it's so important to find a way how to overcome this trauma.
Let me use one example from our human rights work. When we work with people who suffered from sexual violence, for example, rape, we never say that they are victims of rape. We say they are survivors of sexual violence. And we speak about pretty (much) the same, but the focus is different between victim and survivor. Because to stay on the position of victim, it's a very vulnerable position. We have to find a way how to overcome this pain and to be on the post-trauma growth, which help us to develop the society and not to be focused on pain and negative emotions. And this is a task for different parts of society, not just for psychologists, not just for states, but also for civil leaders, religious leaders, and other members of community how to help people to overcome the pain.
SR: If I turn to the general situation in Ukraine at the moment, what is the public mood among Ukrainian citizens, especially those who are in the country? Because as we know, hundreds and thousands have left the country and are refugees around Europe. But the ones who are at home have, of course, on the one hand, a clear sense of purpose and unity in fighting back against this aggression. And of course, there is a strengthening of patriotic feelings. But despite tactical victories and a valiant defense, a decisive breakthrough in the war against Russian troops seems to be missing.
Are you finding that as a result of this stalemate that people are also getting tired and there are political fault lines which seem to be emerging of late between President Zelensky's team and the commander of the military? How do you gauge the general mood in the country?
OM: For sure, it's extremely difficult to live and to fight during the large-scale war. And people are always up and down. And I remember the words of my friend, a Ukrainian writer, and she told, when we are down, we are not down. We are in emotional trenches. Just to retreat, regroup, and go ahead. And this is how Ukrainians try to overcome this tiredness because if we will be tired, we will be killed. So, tiredness is a luxury for people in Ukraine.
Let's return to the nature of this war because its genocidal character present in this aggression. Putin openly said that there is no Ukrainian nation, there is no Ukrainian language, there is no Ukrainian culture. Then if you know Russian language, you can easily follow how Russian propagandists interpret these words. They told that Ukrainians have to be rather re-educated as Russians or killed.
And then we as human rights defenders and journalists document how this verbal message applies in practice in occupied territories, where deliberate extermination of local active people is going on, like religious leaders, writers, people of culture, volunteers, mayors, civil society leaders, where Ukrainian language and culture were banned, and the school and other educational facilities were militarized, where people were forced to go to the Russian army to fight against their own country, and Ukrainian children were forcibly deported to Russia to be brought up as Russians.
So, it's very visible that we have no choice. If we stop fighting, there will be no more us because Putin doesn't want just a part of Ukraine, he wants to occupy the whole country.
SR: Oleksandra, I have the feeling, looking at the mood in Europe, from where I am sitting in Vienna, that far-right populists in Europe will try to exploit the anxieties of their constituencies here. And with elections coming up in many, many European countries, they will try to turn not only resentment of populations here against Ukrainian refugees, but they will also try to slow down the funding efforts for the Ukrainian military and developmental support, which the country obviously needs. And I leave aside the U.S. developments for the moment.
Faced with this uncertainty of foreign support, although the EU has made a huge commitment again, to send financial support and military aid, but also given shifting geopolitical priorities because of the Gaza war, do you feel there will be growing pressure on Ukraine that would weaken its strategic position, pressure to make compromises, and pressure to come to some kind of a ceasefire such that there can be an end to the active hostilities, at least, if it works, and then the task of rebuilding your country after the large-scale destruction of infrastructure, of housing, of roads, bridges, agriculture can start?
OM: There were different foreign journalist investigations (into) how the right (wing) parties in different countries of Europe were financed, and there were presents of Russian money in this financing. So, there is no surprise that now some political forces are trying to help Putin in his game. Because when Putin understood that he can't occupy Ukraine in three or four days, he changed his strategy for a long-lasting war. And now he spent only officially more than 40 percent of the Russian budget for military expenses and transformed the whole society into a military one. And his goal is that Ukraine will break first. And that is why he is trying hard to decrease the level of international support to Ukraine. And now such political forces, in well-developed democracies, are playing on his side.
And this is also part of the more global problem. Because the question is why such political forces are gaining weight in the well-developed democracies. And let's be honest, it shows the problem in democracy in this country itself. Because the current generations replaced those who survived the Second World War. They inherited the system of democracy from their parents. They have never (had to) fight for freedom. And that's why they don't know the real meaning of human rights. And they became consumers of democracy and start to see freedom like a possibility to make a choice between cheeses in supermarket. But freedom is very fragile. And you can't attain freedom once and forever. Because democracy is something which you have (to) contribute (to) and make your choice every day.
We, as Ukrainians, show a bright example that freedom, democracy and the rule of law have to be defended. We have to fight for our values and for our democratic choice. And when some politicians speak about negotiations, it's always important to say what the goal of this negotiation is. Because Putin don't want to stop. And no one from these politicians can say what (is) the leverage to make Putin to stop.
But Russia will not stop. Russia uses this time to transfer former resort into powerful military base in Crimea. Russia retreat, regroup, prepare the plan of attack, and start the large-scale invasion because this is a nature of empire. Russian empire has a center, but as Putin always says, it has no borders, which means that it's not even a matter of Ukraine, it's a matter of the world because if we'll not be able to stop Putin in Ukraine, he will go further.
SR: Let me ask you, Oleksandra, a related question on this because as you know, little support for the Ukrainian cause has been forthcoming from countries of the Global South. One would have thought that an anti-imperialist war is exactly which would get Ukraine the support of countries in Africa, Latin America, South Asia, Southeast Asia because they've all fought national liberation wars, wars for national sovereignty, all kinds of violent and nonviolent battles against imperialism in their own histories.
Do you have some sense of how Ukraine could position itself, make the narrative that you have just so powerfully presented part of the argument to mobilize for itself larger support across the world?
OM: The countries in Africa seem to be our natural supporters because we experience the same colonialism as they have. But the problem is that they are far from our region, and they still look to the situation through the Russian prism, through the Russian narrative. And Russia made a very successful intervention into these countries. Russia built a very powerful informational ecosystem there and distributed the Russian narratives very widely. And that is why now we have to rely only on horizontal ties and try to build this people-to-people contact just to explain what's going on.
This is a good illustration that when you have a truth, it (does) not mean that truth always prevails. No, we live in a world where lies and fakes can dominate. And it means that the obligation of each honest person to invest their time and efforts to support the truth because without these efforts, the truth will not prevail.
SR: I'd like to end on optimistic note. Let's think of a few years down the road when a sense of hope is really restored. The war has come to an end. Ukraine wins this war, recovers sovereignty over its entire territory. Those who are Ukrainian refugees abroad can safely return home, and the deported Ukrainian children are back home safely. Reconstruction begins. If you have such a scenario in mind, what do you think will be the biggest challenge then to establishing democracy and rule of law again after the ravages of this war?
OM: I think that the biggest challenge is that we have no luxury to postpone recovery and restoring democracy when the war will end. Because we have no idea. Either we are in the middle of the war, in the end of the war, or in the beginning of the war. And even if we want to achieve victory, we have to start all recovery process now. Because this war has different dimensions and economic dimension as well. And that is why Russia deliberately destroyed the Ukrainian economic potential, like plants, factories, infrastructure, bridges, etc. And that's why 7.5 million people left the country and can't return because they have no security and no source for living there after these huge destructions.
Which means that we have to be creative. We want to survive. And we have to find a way how to return a breath to local community and economic life of Ukraine, regardless of the large-scale war. And this is not an easy task to succeed, but I know, and I also want to end with a hope, that these dramatic times provide people in Ukraine the opportunity to express their best features, to become better than we are. To express enormous courage. To take burden of responsibility. To make difficult but right choices, and to help each other. And I think this is a very good basis for developing and helping us to go through these dramatic times of our history.
SR: Thank you so very much, Oleksandra, for joining me today, not only with an interview on some really pressing problems that the totally unwarranted war of aggression has caused but also talking so powerfully about the prospects of democracy, for human rights and their defense during an ongoing war and in the future reconstruction of your country. I can only hope that this future will become a reality soon. Thank you so very much for making the time, for being with me today.
OM: Thank you very much for conversation.
SR: Oleksandra Matviichuk reminded us that Russia’s large-scale military invasion of Ukraine two years ago was only the culmination of a war that started more than a decade ago. It began as a reaction to the Revolution of Dignity, when the Ukrainian people rose up against an autocratic regime and expressed their collective desire for democratic transition. What began in 2014 as a regionally contained conflict with the annexation of Ukrainian territories by the Russian army has now turned into fight for the very survival of Ukraine. Its population is engaged in a heroic battle to defend national sovereignty and restore territorial integrity—unfortunately, a frozen fight at the moment with no end in sight.
As Oleksandra has explained, the suffering and pain inflicted systematically on the civilian population of Ukraine have made it imperative to come up with innovative institutional means to document the losses that its citizens have suffered and recognize the human rights violations if they are ever going to be addressed.
An important lesson she has shared with us today is that though it may seem impossible to investigate through juridical channels every single war crime committed by Russian forces, the life of each and every ordinary person in Ukraine who has endured the destruction and survived the violence matters. Given the many new technologies of recording and documenting at our disposal today, she has argued that our approach to war crimes and restorative justice should be overhauled. This would eliminate the accountability gap which would otherwise render many of these victims and their suffering invisible.
As Oleksandra has emphasized, it is also important to find ways to overcome trauma, to memorialize suffering on a collective level in ways that would foster and strengthen the democratic aspirations of Ukrainian society. The temporality of democratization has an urgency that cannot be postponed to the future of the ‘post-war’ condition, but instead efforts to democratize must be simultaneous with the efforts of the war.
Ukraine and its citizens continue to provide inspiration, as well as a timely reminder, to all of us who may have grown complacent about freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. Rather than taking these for granted as irreversible historical achievements, we should recognize how fragile freedom and democracy even in our societies are. They may not be available to us for long if we turn from engaged citizens into passive consumers. Democratic principles and choices must be defended by all means. No one embodies better the spirit of this resolve today than the people of Ukraine.
This was the fourth episode of season 8. Thank you very much for listening. Join us again in a fortnight, when my guest will be Vivek Maru, founder and CEO of Namati, a grassroots legal empowerment organization based in Washington, D.C. We will talk about their work on environmental justice and the empowerment of marginalized communities to foster their right to self-determination.
Please go back and listen to any episode you might have missed. And of course, let your friends know about this podcast, if you’ve enjoyed it. You can stay in touch with the work of the CEU at www.ceu.edu and the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy at www.graduateinstitute.ch/democracy.