Elena Davlikanova
Hello, I’m Elena Davlikanova, a Democracy Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, and welcome to “Understand in Ukraine”, a series of conversations with Ukrainian decision making opinion leaders and experts that focuses on a variety of topics to better understand Ukraine, the ongoing war against Russia, the future of the Ukrainian people, and their relationships with partners and allies. And it is my honor today to have this conversation with Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Head of the Center for Civil Liberties, and the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize winner. Oleksandra, thank you very much for joining us today. And I have a couple of questions. The first one would be as follows. Since the beginning of this war, almost 10 years ago, the Center for Civil Liberties has been doing a lot to bring human rights violations committed by the Russian Federation to the light of the day, and with the beginning of the full scale invasion, the number of war crimes skyrocketed. Could you please talk about the initiative tribunal for Putin and the state of collecting war crime evidence?
Oleksandra Matviichuk
When large scale invasion started, we are faced with unprecedented numbers of war crimes. And that is why we united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions into one tribunal for Putin initiative, we build all Ukrainian network of local documenters and cover the whole country, including the occupied regions, we have an ambitious goal to document each criminal episode, which was committed in a smallest village in each Oblast of Ukraine, and working together only since the large scale invasion started for that time. We have in our database, more than 45,000 episodes for crimes. And it’s a huge amount, but still a tip of iceberg, because Russia uses war crimes as the methods of warfare, Russia, deliberately commit war crimes. This is a methods how Russia tried to break people resistance and occupy Ukraine.
Elena Davlikanova
With this title of your initiative tribunal for Putin, it may suggest that it is Putin’s not Russia’s war. What do you think about the notion of collective responsibility of the citizens of the Russian Federation?
Oleksandra Matviichuk
It’s not just Putin’s war. The truth is that is a war of Russian nation. And the problem is that majority of Russians supported this war, or naturally accepted and justify all war crimes which Russian troops committed on the territory of Ukraine because Putin govern the country not just with repression and censorship, but with a special social contract, which is based on Russian glory. And unfortunately, Russians as imperialistic nation still see their glory in a forcible restoration of Russian Empire. That is why only success of Ukraine and military defeat of Russia will provide a chance for democratic future of Russia itself, because it will push Russians to reflect on their country. Maybe it’s not good in 21 century, to invade in other country and to kill people and to erode their identity.
Elena Davlikanova
In your speech at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, you said the following, “A state that kills journalists, in prisons activists, or disperses peaceful demonstration possesses a threat not only to its citizens, such a state possesses a threat to the entire region and peace in the world as a whole. Therefore, the world must adequately respond to systemic violations.” In your opinion, how does the systemic an adequate response look like? And how can the world break the cycle of violence and impunity because impunity and non punish evil just brings more evil?
Oleksandra Matviichuk
The problem is that democratic countries for too long compromised with dictatorship. Russian troops committed horrible war crimes in Chechnya, in Moldova, in Georgia, in Mali, in Syria, Libya, in other countries of the world, and they have never been punished for this. It’s this violence and culture of impunity become a part of Russian culture, Russian start to believe they can do whatever they want. And that is why we must break the circle of impunity. We must demonstrate justice, not just for Ukrainians, and not just for people who were affected by Russian aggression and Russian war crimes in the past, but to prevent a new Russian aggression against the new nation and countries happened.
Elena Davlikanova
In my last question, how do you see the future of Ukraine? And is there anything else that you would like to tell to our viewers?
Oleksandra Matviichuk
I see Ukrainian victory and victory for Ukraine is not just to repeal Russian troops out from Ukrainian territory and restore our sovereignty, and release people who live in occupied Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk and other regions, which is under Russian occupation temporarily. But victory for Ukraine is also a means to succeed in democratic transition of our country, to build a sustainable democratic institutions to have a chance to build and develop society where the rights of everybody are protected, government is accountable. judiciary is independent, and police do not beat students who are peacefully demonstrating. This was the main goal, which drives Ukrainians during the Revolution of Dignity. And when we succeed nine years ago, and authoritarian regime collapse, in order to stop us on this way, Russia started this war of aggression. So this is Ukrainian victory and this means that we have to win fast. And in order to make it happen, we have to switch from the narrative, let’s help Ukraine not to fail to a narrative let’s help Ukraine to win fast. We are very grateful for all support to United States of America to other countries. It’s very important not to be alone, when you face with such enormous challenge, because it’s not just a war between two states. This is a war between two systems, authoritarianism and democracy. But it’s time to switch to narrative and to set an ambitious goal. Let’s jointly help Ukraine to win fast, because it means another types of weapons and other types of sanctions, another speed of weapons. And the problem is that we have no time as Ukrainians. The time for us, converted in numerous tests, Ukraine is bleeding. We have numerous tests in battlefield, numerous deaths in occupied territories and the prayer.
Elena Davlikanova
Thank you very much for this conversation, I really hope that this message will go through and this fear will be overcome the fear that Russia may be defeated. And I think that it is also very important for us to remember that impunity just brings more evil and then history repeats itself and it’s very important to also help Russia to launch this really comprehensive memory policy. Thank you for watching this episode of “Understanding Ukraine” and if you’re interested in our work, please visit our website cepa.org.
