The Just Security Podcast

Nobel Peace Prize Recipient Oleksandra Matviichuk on Accountability in Russia’s War Against Ukraine

• Just Security • Episode 92

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Oleksandra Matviichuk is one of the leading lawyers and human rights advocates pushing for accountability for grave crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2007, Oleksandra founded the Center for Civil Liberties, which she still leads. In 2022, it became the first Ukrainian organization to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The center was awarded the prize that year alongside human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, and the Russian human rights organization Memorial.  

The Center for Civil Liberties aims to advance human rights and democracy in Ukraine and the broader Europe-Eurasia region. It defends individual rights, develops legislative changes, conducts public oversight over law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, and offers educational activities for young people.

How does the Center for Civil Liberties promote accountability? And what does Oleksandra see as the key issues and trends to watch as this full-scale war nears its third-year mark in February?

Just Security’s Washington Senior Editor, Viola Gienger, recently sat down with Oleksandra to discuss her work. Here is their conversation.

Show Notes: 

Paras Shah: Oleksandra Matviichuk is one of the leading lawyers and human rights advocates pushing for accountability for grave crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In 2007, Oleksandra founded the Center for Civil Liberties, which she still leads. In 2022, it became the first Ukrainian organization to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. The center was awarded the prize that year alongside human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, and the Russian human rights organization Memorial. 

The Center for Civil Liberties aims to advance human rights and democracy in Ukraine and the broader Europe-Eurasia region. It defends individual rights, develops legislative changes, conducts public oversight over law enforcement agencies and the judiciary, and offers educational activities for young people. 

How does the Center for Civil Liberties promote accountability? And what does Oleksandra see as the key issues and trends to watch as this full-scale war nears its third-year mark in February?  

This is the Just Security Podcast. I’m your host, Paras Shah. 

Just Security’s Washington Senior Editor, Viola Gienger, recently sat down with Oleksandra to discuss her work. Here is their conversation. 

Viola Gienger: Just to start with, thank you very much for being here. 

Oleksandra Matviichuk: Thank you for the invitation. 

Viola: Tell us briefly about the origins of your organization, the Center for Civil Liberties. What was going on in Ukraine at the time, and what problems were you trying to address? 

Oleksandra: We established the Center for Civil Liberties in 2007. It was idea of heads of different Helsinki Committees from different countries, from OEC region. But that moment, Ukraine was the only one exception from the general trend, because Ukraine showed a real dedication to freedom and democracy after the Orange Revolution. And that is why the heads of Helsinki Committees [said], “Let's establish organization which will promote human rights and freedom, not only on a national level, but on the international level.” And that is our story. 

Viola: And what concretely were you doing at that time? And then, what are you doing now? Just a few examples.

Oleksandra: We started with human rights education, and it was reason for this, because when we speak about democratic transition of the country or entire region, it's not enough just to adopt qualities, laws, or build some formal institutions, because values of society always prevail. It's value of society which provide energy for these laws and institutions to work properly, and that's why we start with human rights education, about democracy, about freedom, about civil participation. But very soon, we start to massively involve ordinary people into our work. And this was our unique feature for all these decades. During the Revolution of Dignity, for example, we brought up several thousands of people. We worked 24 hours per day to provide legal and other assistance to prosecuted protesters every day — hundreds of people who were beaten, arrested, tortured, accused in fabricated criminal cases, and we managed to [process] more [than] 16,000 requests for help, because thousands of people joined to this initiative. 

Viola: Yeah, and so how big is the organization now? How many staff do you have, and what kind of volunteers, and what kind of specific projects are you working on right now? 

Oleksandra: We are not a big organization. We have up to 25 people, and everything which we achieved, it’s a result of that fact that ordinary people joined to our work. And I know from my own experience, when you can't rely on the legal mechanisms, you can still rely on people, and this is my main lesson learned, because we can get used to thinking through categories of states and interstate organizations, but ordinary people have a much greater influence [than] they can even imagine. Ordinary people can do extraordinary things and can change the world history. 

What we are focusing on for the current moment, we are documenting war crimes in this war, which Russia has launched against Ukraine since 2014. And the first years of the war, we precisely focus on the legal practice of abduction, legal detention, torture, sexual violence and killing civilians in the occupied territories. And I personally interviewed hundreds of people who survived Russian captivity. They told me how they were beaten, raped, smashed into wooden boxes. Their fingers were cut. Their nails were turned away. The nails were drilled. There were electrically shocked through the genitalia. One woman told how her eye was dug out with a spoon. And when the large-scale war started, we [were] faced with unbelievable amounts of war crimes. So, in order to be effective, we united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions. We built national network of local documenters. We covered the whole country, including the occupied territories. And working together only for this two and a half years of this large-scale war, we jointly documented more than 80,000 results of war crimes. And to be clear, what we are doing — this war turned people into the numbers. We are returning people their names, because people are not numbers, and the life of each person matters.  

Viola: Thank you. Yeah, those are just astounding numbers and a reminder of everything that Ukraine has been through for many years, even before the full-scale invasion, and in February 22, as you mentioned. 

You always have such compelling stories about individual victims and survivors of the war in Ukraine. Tell us one that's on your mind today.

Oleksandra: I never interviewed children in my life, who became victims of war crimes, because this is my red line, and that's why I'm very sensitive to the topic of violations of rights of children. So, probably I will tell you a story which was recorded not by myself, but my colleague. And this is a story of 13-year-old Sophia from Mariupol. When Russians tried to siege the city, she hid in the basement of her residential building, together with her mom and the younger sister and the brother. And one day, the house was bombarded by Russian aircraft, and this young girl [said] that her brother died immediately, and she tried to take her mom out from the rubbles of the residential buildings, and she [said] that she was very scared because she heard this Russian aircraft in the sky, and she was afraid that they started the bombarding again. But she wanted to help her mom just to breathe, and after that, when she managed, without troubles, just with her own hands, to make some space for this, she ran for help. 

Unfortunately, her mother died, and her younger sister was illegally transferred to occupied territories —

Viola: By the Russians? 

Oleksandra: — by Russians. She was supposed to be adopted. And her elder sister, I really can't imagine her bravery. She came and took them home.

Viola: Wow. And that's one of so many stories, as you've mentioned, that you all have documented.

Oleksandra: Yes, unfortunately, it's going on daily. Just two or three days ago, Russians deliberately hit the hospital in Zaporizhzhia, and four people died after this air strike, and dozens of people were injured, and it's horror become part of our daily life.

Viola: So, on that subject of Russia's war crimes, one of the many and most egregious has been, as you've mentioned, systematic coerced deportation and naturalization, reeducation, fostering and adoption of Ukrainian children. Just Security recently published an article and posted a podcast about the latest report on that from the Yale School of Public Health's Humanitarian Research Lab. The researchers identified 314 Ukrainian children that Russian officials transferred from Ukraine to Russia for forced adoption and fostering. According to the report, such acts may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity under international law. What is the Ukrainian government and, either separately or in coordination, what is civil society able to do to address this pattern of offenses?

Oleksandra: It's very difficult question to answer, because Russia ignores all provisions of international law and all decisions of international organization. That's why no surprise that while Ukrainian authorities identified up to 20,000 Ukrainian children being illegally deported to Russia, only almost 500 were returned back. So, it's a huge problem. And what is also not visible for international community is that this crime is a part of broader genocidal policy, which the Russian state imposed against Ukraine.

What do I mean? Putin directly says there is no Ukrainian nation. There is no Ukrainian language. There is no Ukrainian culture. For ten years, we have been documenting how these words converted in horrible practice when Russian troops physically exterminate active local people on the ground — mayors, journalists, teachers, children, writers, musicians, environmentalists, any active people of communities. How they ban Ukrainian language and culture, how they destroy and [break] Ukrainian cultural heritage. And when they to take Ukrainian children to Russia, they put Ukrainian children in Russian education camps. They are told that they are not Ukrainian, they are Russian children, that their parents, their families, refused from them, and they will be adopted by Russian families, who will bring them up as Russians. So, I, as a lawyer, I know that genocide is a crime of crimes, and it's very difficult to prove their genocidal intent, but there is no necessity to be a lawyer to understand common sense. If you want to realize your genocidal intent and to partially or completely destroy some national group, there is no necessity for you to kill all representatives of this group. You can just forcibly change their identity, and the entire national group, sooner or later, will disappear. 

Viola: That's really a compelling argument, and in fact, Just Security has also been publishing for the past year and a half a tracker of Russia's genocidal rhetoric against Ukraine by Putin, Medvedev and other senior figures and associates of them, so I certainly understand the point that you're making there. 

I just want to follow up on that point about these abductions and what can be done. What particularly is your organization, the Center for Civil Liberties, doing in that regard? You’re tracking some of these cases, doing interviews? 

Oleksandra: We work in this initiative, which is called a Tribunal for Putin initiative, together with other partners and all together, our aim is to document all criminal episodes which was committed in the smallest village in each oblast in Ukraine, and bring perpetrators to justice, to provide a chance for justice to all victims of this war. And part of our colleagues precisely focus on the problem of illegal deportation and transferring of Ukrainian children, and we together document these war crimes, but my organization is not making and providing support or finance or psychological assistance for their relatives, for their families and for the children when they're returned. But our partners are doing this job. 

Viola: That's great to know. So, the Center for Civil Liberties shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 with a Belarusian rights activist and with the respected organization, Memorial, in Russia. Have you been able to stay connected with the individuals involved in Memorial who are still free, either probably not in Russia, but outside, and with the Viasna Human Rights Center, the organization that Ales Bialiatski, your Belarusian counterpart, is a political prisoner in in Belarus?

Oleksandra: Just to describe the situation more precisely, we received the Nobel Peace Prize, not just with our colleagues, but with our friends, with whom we are working for decades together. We continue this tradition of Soviet dissidents, when people from different countries build invisible ties for their own societies in order to fight for people and human dignity in situation when the law doesn't work, when the evil try to dominate in the part of our region, and now we just repeat in the same tradition. So, I was in Minsk on the first trial when Ales Bialiatski was for the first time accused in fabricated criminal case and imprisoned. I came here as a gesture of solidarity, just to be present. Unfortunately, I couldn't make it after 2021 because it became dangerous for my liberty. Belarus is totally occupied by Russia and totally controlled by Russia. I hope it's temporary.

And seven other my friends and colleagues with from the Human Rights Center, Viasna, are also imprisoned by the Lukashenko regime, so we have connections only with some other people who remained free from Viasna. But we, on a daily basis, work with our colleagues from the Russian Human Rights Center, Memorial, because we are working together on different issues, like illegally detained Ukrainian civilians, torture and sexual violence on the occupied territories. And generally, we see the world through the same lens. What do I mean? Last year, the Russian Human Rights Center, Memorial, published a brilliant report. I strongly recommend to read it. They analyze Russian tactics in Chechnya, in Syria and in Ukraine, and they [said], this is the same war crime playbook — the chain of wars, chain of crimes and chain of impunity. So, we are closely working together to break this chain to demonstrate justice, not only for people in Ukraine and for people in other countries who suffered from Russian war crimes because they are committed in Syria, in Chechnya, in Moldova in Georgia, in Mali in Libya, in other countries of the world, but also, we are fighting for justice to prevent the  next Russian attack on the next nation. 

Viola: Thank you. So, after the Assad regime fell in Syria, speaking of these other countries, just last week, you posted on Twitter, which has been renamed X, and I'm summarizing here, “The day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I received a letter from Syrian human rights defenders. They asked me how they could help in our fight for justice, because our struggle is their struggle. Today, I ask Syrian human rights defenders how we can help.” How have Syrians helped you since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and then, what kind of contact have you had in the past week and a half or so?

Oleksandra: Let me return to this Thursday of the Russian invasion and emphasize how important was for me to receive this human voice of support, because it was time when not just Putin, but also our international partners were confident that Ukraine has no potential to resist because Russia is so enormous opposing power. So, this, just, human gesture of solidarity from our Syrian human rights colleagues, it was so essential for me, who refused to evacuate, who was in Kyiv when Russian troops tried to circle it, and I remember very clearly how we celebrated each morning like a victory, because we stood up just one more night. So first, I want to emphasize these human words, human solidarity, empathy and love, which I feel through these words and letters. 

Immediately, Syrian human rights defenders started to share their experience. I remember that they [said], please, tell your government not to mark hospitals with a sign that this is hospitals, because in Syria, when the U.N. provided for Russia and other sides of the conflicts, the map of hospitals to secure these hospitals, Russia precisely bombarded all the hospitals and the same we had in just in the beginning of the war. The world remembers these horrible pictures from the Associated Press of a maternity hospital in Mariupol, which was bombarded by Russia, as they also [said], please tell your people not to mark evacuation corridors with sign of children, because they will — Russians will deliberately hit this corridor, cars and buses, with the children. And immediately we had this in practice. You remember that the Mariupol drama theater had in big letters, “children”, and they were totally destroyed. 

Later, we start to organize joint advocacy efforts, just to show these links, because Russia trained in Syria and war crimes suggest technology for Russia how to break peoples’ resistance and win the war. For example, in Syria, Russia started to do this so-called double-strike, when Russia hit deliberately, some hospital or residential building or schools or church or museum, and then when immediately rescuers come and people come to help people who are dying in the rubble, they, within the five minutes, send a second strike to kill rescuers who come to save civilians. So, first, this tactic was imposed in Syria, and we make a link that this is the same tactic which Russia used, because Russia has never been punished for this.

And now, let me end on the positive note. We all know that it's a very challenging time for people in Syria, and from the bottom of my heart, I wish them to overcome all of this challenge. But I received a response from colleagues from Syria, and they told me they’re returning home. It's incredible. They're fighting for justice for more than 13 years. They recorded horror, which becomes so daily, common, that world news stopped to tell about this horror. Now, they get this chance for justice, so I really want to be useful and supportive.

Viola: Thank you very much. So, Russia's full-scale war is nearing its third anniversary in in February. And of course, it has really been going on since 2014, as you've mentioned, when Russia captured the Crimean Peninsula and took over large sections of the eastern region of Donbas. How are Ukrainians holding up?

Oleksandra: I'm still lacking a proper voice to describe what does it mean to live during the large-scale war, because everything which we call normal life was ruined, was crushed into hundreds and hundreds of pieces. To live during the large-scale war means that you live in total uncertainty, because you can't plan not just your day. You can't plan your next several hours. You have no idea what will happen. To live during the large-scale war means that you live a constant fear for your beloved ones, because there is no safe place in Ukraine where you can hide from Russian rockets, and especially now when Russia instrumentalized winter as a weapon. Russia has already destroyed the vast majority of the Ukrainian energy regeneration system, and last week identified this constant challenge against civil objects, because Russia wants millions of people in Ukraine to fight this winter without heating, electricity, water, light, which is survival question, because it puts a very practical question — how you can warm milk for your newborn baby? And that's why the second criminal procedure in which the International Criminal Court opened, it was deliberately about this intense, intentional destruction of the energy system of Ukraine, so it's difficult to maintain. 

But, once again, I don't want to end on just on this dark mood. We all know that war is horrible, and probably is the most horrible thing which just can happen in human life, but these dramatic times also provide people in Ukraine to express the best in us, to reveal our best features, to be courageous, to fight for freedom, to make difficult but right choices, to take the burden of responsibility and to help each other. And now I understand that only when you're helping each other, when you sometimes are even risking your life for others who you never met before, only in this moment you are acutely aware, what does it mean to be human? And frankly speaking, in the future, I want to forget a lot about this war. I don't want to bring the war in my heart to the end of my life, because while the war is horrible, I want to remember forever what important in our life is, for what we have to live and fight for. 

Viola: Thank you. So how do you see this war ending? What do you think the Biden administration can and will do in its final days in office? And how are you approaching the Trump administration, which will take over on January 20? 

Oleksandra: I think that we have to understand the goal of Russia there, and to accept this reality, because Russia doesn't want just more part of Ukrainian land. Putin wants to destroy and occupy the whole country, and even more, he wants to restore the Russian Empire. And that's why, if you are not able to stop Putin in Ukraine, he will go further, he will go further. He will attack another country, because Russia is an empire, and an empire has a center, but has no borders. An empire always tries to expand, and I see it even from my human rights work, because when I interviewed people who survived Russian captivity, they told me, Russians see their future like this: first, we will occupy Ukraine, and then, together with you, we will go to conquer another country. And the process of forcible mobilizations of Ukrainians to the Russian army all these years is going on in occupied territories. So, we have to take this goal seriously, especially because Putin doesn't refuse from this goal. Even after two and a half years of this large-scale war and a lot of laws which Russia experienced by itself, Putin doesn't refuse, because human life is the cheapest resource for Russia. Putin doesn't care about the life of his citizens. And that's why, when we speak about what has to be done, or these ideas about future peace processes, we have to design all other actions in a way to make for Russia not just postpone this goal to achieve, but impossible for Russia to achieve this goal.

We have to discuss the security guarantees, how we can stop Russia to go further. We have to discuss the question of people, because it's not question of territories, it's question of people who live under Russian occupation, and discuss how we can leave them alone for torture and death? Because I know that some people don't know what Russian occupation is about, and probably they have this illusion that occupation at least decreases human suffering. But I know, as a human rights lawyer who work with crimes committed under occupation for ten years, that occupation doesn't decrease human suffering. Occupation just makes human suffering invisible. And occupation is the same war, but just in another form, because Russian occupation is not just changing one state like to another. Russian occupation means torture, rape, denial of your identity, forcible adoption of your own children, filtration camps and mass graves. So, we have to discuss all these questions to design the solution, how to stop Russia.

Viola: So, what do you think is Ukraine's most powerful leverage to get as much as it can from any kind of ceasefire or peace deal? What is Ukraine’s leverage?

Oleksandra: If I may to say I think that it's spirit of Ukrainian people, because when not only Putin, but our international partners, thought that we have no potential to resist, millions of people in Ukraine [said] we don't care that Russia is an enormous opposing power, that Russia has veto power in the U.N. Security Council, oil and gas, which means money, strong military potential, nuclear weapons, 140 millions of population. We don't care. We will fight for our freedom and human dignity. 

And suddenly, it became obvious that people fighting for their freedom and human dignity are stronger than even the second army in the world. And I know that when you open any social survey about values of Ukrainian people, people in Ukraine always put freedom in first place of hierarchical values. I think this is our main leverage.

Viola: That's powerful. So, when you consider all of the conflicts in the world at the current moment, what do you think the international community can do now and going forward, to support Ukraine? When you travel around Europe and the United States, what are the most important questions you get? 

Oleksandra: I think that the main problem for the international community to be effective to stop Russian oppression in Ukraine and in other countries is the following. It was Russia who was always proactive. Russia committed something horrible, then presented it emphatically, like a new reality, and pushed international community to reckon with it. So, the international community always was just reactive. They tried to play within the rule of games which was set by Putin, and it's not an effective strategy. I think now it's a time to establish peace through strengths and start to be proactive, finally.  

Viola: You think peace through strength on the side of the international community in Ukraine against Russia? I think peace through strength is a phrase that Trump has used? 

Oleksandra: It’s a phrase of Reagan. He used this phrase when he fought against the Soviet Union, which he called the empire of evil. And I think Reagan knew the nature of the Soviet empire.

Viola: And when you look, also, worldwide and you see the democratic backsliding, the backsliding on human rights, how are you thinking about these trends? I mean, how —does it really seem to be getting inevitably worse, or what? How do you look at that?  

Oleksandra: We're losing freedom in the world. This year, half the population of the world goes to elections. But don't [let it] be an illusion. Eighty percent of people in the world live in non-free or partially free societies, which means that people who have a real right to vote are a minority. And there is a reason for this, because generations who survived after the Second World War are gone, and current generations, they start to perceive freedom and human rights like something which they have for granted. They inherited democracy from their parents. They became consumers of democracy. They consider freedom as a possibility to make a choice between different cheeses in a supermarket. Current generations don't understand the value of freedom. They don't understand that freedom is very fragile. You can't attain your human rights and freedom once and forever, and that's why we are losing freedom in the world, because the problem is not just in fact that in authoritarian countries, the space for freedom is shrinking to the size of the prison cell. The problem is that even in democratic countries, people start to openly question the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Viola: So, what are you tracking in the coming months that you think others may not be watching as closely and should be watching more closely? 

Oleksandra: Probably, I will not focus on Ukraine. I will try to show a more global picture. I don't know how historians in the future will call this historical period, but we live in a time of turbulence, because the international order, which is based on the U.N. Charter and international law, is collapsing before our eyes. The work of U.N. Security Council is paralyzed, and now fires like worse will occur more and more often in different parts of the globe, because the entire international environment is faulty and sparks are everywhere. And I think that the main question for the twenty-first century remains the same:  how will we people who live in the twenty-first century will defend human beings, their lives, their freedom and their human dignity? Can we rely on the law or does just brutal force matter? 

As a human rights lawyer, now I find in myself in situation when the law doesn't work because the entire U.N. system of peace and security can't stop Russian atrocities. But as a human rights lawyer, I believe that it's temporary. And that's why I and other human rights defenders from other countries are working hard to restore rule-based international order. And what is probably not very visible, that in order to achieve this goal, we must start a cardinal reform of U.N. system of peace and security. It's not working properly. The system was designed last century. It's provided irrational indulgences for certain countries, and they can't effectively protect people against authoritarianism and worse. We as a people from different countries, who want to be safe and to have our freedom, have started to demand from politicians of cardinal reform of the system.

Viola: Cardinal reform of the system. And what do you mean by that?  

Oleksandra: Let me tell you just several problems which we have to overcome. We call the United Nations an international organization. But in fact, it's not international. It's an interstates organization and states present their national interest, not interest of humanity. Second problem, we call it the United Nations, but let's be honest, a lot of states, they don't present their nations. They are autocrats. They represent just their own elites who captured power in these countries, but not people from their country. So, it’s a second problem which we have to solve. And third, generally, when we speak about approach, how to change this architecture, when I heard the ideas that, let's expand the number of the countries of this privileged club with veto power. Sorry, but it's not reform. We have to base this new architecture not on the size of the country or level of GDP, but on human rights and values. Human rights and values have to be centered in this reform and all these processes.

Viola: Thank you very much. You've given us a lot to think about. Is there anything else that you would like to add that you think that we really should be considering right now?  

Oleksandra: Probably, I will use this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to people from the United States to people from other countries for your solidarity and support in this dramatic time of our history. Once again, so important to note that you are not alone when you are faced with such enormous supporting power, because it's difficult. And I would like to remind that we are fighting for freedom which has no limitation in national borders, as well as other things, human solidarity. So, thank you for your human solidarity. 

Viola: Well, thank you very much for everything you've done and for taking the time to be with us. It's been a wonderful conversation. I appreciate it.  

Oleksandra: Thank you very much. 

Paras: This episode was produced by me, Paras Shah, and Viola Gienger, with help from Clara Apt.  

Special thanks to Oleksandra Matviichuk. You can read all of Just Security’s coverage of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and international law, including Oleksandra’s analysis, on our website. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.

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