Oleksandra Matviichuk: HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER ON OCCUPATION

The interview took place in Kyiv in August 2024.
Conducted by Volodymyr Kadygrob and Anna Malykhina, editor Kateryna Korchynska.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, a human rights defender and head of Ukraine’s “Center for Civil Liberties,” has spent over a decade documenting the harrowing realities of war crimes in occupied territories. As a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2022, she uses her platform to expose the true nature of occupation—a form of war that perpetuates human suffering in hidden, brutal ways. Matviichuk shares firsthand accounts and extensive documentation of Russian war crimes during Ukraine’s ongoing invasion, challenging the misconception that occupation brings relief from violence.

I have been documenting war crimes in occupied territories for ten years now. Additionally, due to the nature of my work, I travel extensively and speak on various international platforms. I see how, abroad, people’s understanding of what occupation truly is differs drastically from what we document. Some people abroad may hold a naive perception that, given that war is probably one of the worst things that can happen in a person’s life, occupation, though bad, is better than war because it reduces human suffering. Our experience strongly proves that this is far from the truth. Occupation is simply another form of war. Occupation does not reduce human suffering; it makes human suffering invisible. 

Over these ten years, and especially during the early years of the war, we focused on types of war crimes that were widespread during the occupation, such as illegal detention, abduction, torture, sexual violence, and the killing of people in occupied territories. We also tracked and documented various forms of politically motivated persecution. I have personally interviewed hundreds of people who were released from captivity. They shared gruesome details of how they were beaten, raped, boarded up inside wooden boxes, had their limbs cut off, nails pulled out, knees crushed, how they had electric current connected to their genitals, forced to write in their blood. One woman told us how they tried to scoop her eye out with a spoon. And when you document all of this, you come to fully understand that even in the context of war, there was no legitimate reason for these actions, nor was there any military necessity for them. The Russians committed all these horrific acts simply because they could.

So, occupation is a gray zone where a person has no means to protect themselves, their rights, their freedom, their property, their life, or the lives of their loved ones. That’s why, when I speak on international platforms and talk about what we document in the occupied territories, I always try to explain that occupation is not just about changing one national flag to another. Russian occupation means violent abduction, rape, torture, denial of your own identity, the forced adoption of your children, filtration camps, and mass graves. 

When I stayed in Kyiv in February and March 2022, at a time when Russian forces were trying to
encircle the city and had occupied several towns in the Kyiv region, we (the team at the Center for Civil Liberties) refused to evacuate and continued documenting the war crimes. Here are a few examples of what life under Russian occupation looks like.

March 2022 in the occupied town of Bucha, the Kyiv region. A father and his son cycled to the town center in search of humanitarian aid. At that time, people were hiding in basements and had no supplies. Russian soldiers stopped them, and they immediately halted. It was obvious they were civilians on bicycles—they even raised their hands (as the son later recounted). But the Russian soldiers opened fire on them at point-blank range, killing the father and wounding the son. They did this simply because they wanted to, despite there being no reason or even any non-verbal signs of aggression—just frightened civilians searching for humanitarian aid to survive.

Another example, also from the Kyiv region. Yelysei Ryabokon—a 13-year-old boy with a younger brother and a mother. When the full-scale invasion began, like many others, the mother mistakenly thought it would be safer in a village than in a big city, so she took her children to the countryside. However, it just so happened that the Russians occupied this particular village in the Kyiv region. The family spent several days hiding in a basement without light, under constant explosions, with no water or food supplies. She realized that she had to get the children out of there. So, she went to the Russian soldiers and begged them to allow her to take her children to a safe place. Finally, they allowed her to do this and even waved her goodbye, but when a couple of cars with women and children started moving, Russian soldiers suddenly opened fire at them. The vehicles immediately stopped, the doors opened, and people started falling out of them on the road. Among the people killed during the occupation was a 13-year-old boy, Yelysei Ryabokon. The mother recounted that they were all sent back (to the village—Ed.) straight after, and she wasn’t even allowed to take her son’s body. Then, she wasn’t allowed to bury him at the cemetery, so she had to dig a makeshift grave in the garden of their house. All she has left from her son is a red hat, riddled with bullets, and a white shirt, which they used to put on top of kids’ warm jackets to signify that they are civilians.

A story my friend, writer Viktoriia Amelina, was working on before she was killed in a targeted Russian missile strike on a café in Kramatorsk. She was working on the story of her colleague, a children’s author, Volodymyr Vakulenko. He wrote wonderful works for children, and an entire generation of Ukrainian kids grew up reading his “Father’s Book.” During the Russian occupation, he disappeared.

His family was hoping that he was in captivity, like thousands of other Ukrainian civilians. But when the Ukrainian army drove the Russians out of the Kharkiv region, mass graves were discovered in a forest near Izyum, containing the bodies of civilian men, women, and children. Identification of the deceased was conducted, and it was revealed that in grave number 319 lay the children’s writer Volodymyr Vakulenko. Before his arrest, he had managed to bury his diary, which my friend Viktoriia found when mobile documentation teams visited the liberated areas of the Kharkiv region. And again, the question arises: why kill a children’s author? The answer is the same—because the Russians could. 

Similarly, one can recall how, in the Kherson region in the fall of 2022, the Russians killed the musical conductor and composer Yurii Kerpatenko. The reason was that he refused to participate in a so-called “international concert” that Russia organized in the occupied territory. He simply said “no,” and it cost him his life. It is the reality of life under occupation. You not only have to refrain from resisting the occupiers, but you also have to do everything they demand of you.

Another aspect of life under occupation is the erasure of your identity. I remember meeting with teachers from a school in Berdyansk, a city currently under occupation. The teachers recalled how, when the Russian soldiers came to their school, the first thing they demanded was to get all the Ukrainian language and history books so they could burn them and immediately replace them with books on the Russian language and history in the falsified Russian interpretation of events. When they visited liberated territories, our mobile teams shared stories of how people had retrieved hidden Ukrainian symbols—for example, the national flag, which was buried in the garden in a three-liter jar. It’s truly hard to imagine. Just imagine, for instance, that you live in France, you’re a French citizen, and you could be tortured to death just because the flag of your country was found at your home.

What often stays behind the scenes are the stories of forced mobilization into the Russian army. On February 23, 2022, just one day before the full-scale invasion, we issued an appeal to international organizations. It was because we had started receiving dozens upon dozens of messages from people in the occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk, saying they were being forcibly taken into the Russian army. It is the empire’s policy—to occupy foreign lands, break people, and forcibly draft them into the Russian army, using them as new resources to push further. This process continues today and is gaining momentum in the newly occupied territories since 2022. Very few in the West truly understand that we don’t have much choice. Either we join the Ukrainian armed forces and fight for the chance to have freedom, rights, and an independent state, or we are simply taken into the Russian army. It’s a choice without a choice.

Another important issue is religious persecution in the occupied territories. We have been working on this topic since the very first days of the war. Russia tries to project an image to the world of being a defender of traditional values, supposedly a very religious country, but in reality, this is a myth. This image has nothing to do with reality. Russia views religion as a collective category defined by loyalty to the Russian state. For example, if a church—such as the Moscow Patriarchate—is fully controlled by the FSB, then that church is allowed to exist, but all others are not. This policy is being forcibly implemented in the occupied territories. Churches, mosques, temples, synagogues, and religious buildings of various churches, denominations, and religious organizations are being destroyed. Some of them are forcibly transferred under the control of the Moscow Patriarchate. In a former Evangelical church in Mariupol, the Russians have set up a military base. Religious leaders face persecution, and worshipers are being killed.

For example, just three months ago, the Russian military came to the home of Father Stepan Podolchak, who was 59 years old. He lived in the village of Kalanchak, which is in the Kherson region; now, part of the region is under occupation. He was the rector of the church. The Russian military turned everything upside down inside his house, put a bag on his head, and drove him out of the house barefoot. After two days, they informed his wife that Father Stepan had died. They tortured him to death. Before the abduction, he said that the Russians persistently forced the church to be handed over to the Moscow Patriarchate. Like a priest, he explained to them with humility that he could not betray his faith, oath, or parishioners.

Another topic is the stories of deportation. We’ve seen this policy of forced population replacement since Crimea was occupied. The local population, which had lived there before the occupation, is being displaced, and various federal programs are being introduced targeted at relocating Russians from different regions to Crimea. The demographic composition is changed, and the forcibly seized territory is colonized. This creates a basis for long-term problems for future decades because the people now living on this land weren’t there before. They often move into somebody else’s homes and apartments, fully furnished with belongings left by the previous owners. At the same time, the forced removal of the Ukrainian population in various regions of the Russian Federation is happening. We observed this throughout 2022.

The mass deportation of Ukrainian children is also part of this policy with a genocidal nature. To destroy a national group, either entirely or partially, it’s not necessary to kill all its members—you can forcibly erase their identity, and that group will disappear. Children are the most vulnerable group subject to change of identity, especially when they’re taken to Russia, placed in re-education camps, and then given to Russian families, where they’re told they aren’t Ukrainian children but Russian.

The Russians also use war crimes as a method of waging war to keep captured territories in submission. That is why the terror against the active part of the civilian population is so horrifying.
The cruelty serves a specific purpose. When you look at those captured—priests, journalists, environmentalists, businesspeople, teachers, mayors—you see that they come from various social groups. But all these people were active and had authority in their professional circles and local communities. That makes them dangerous to the Russians, even if they never intended to resist the occupation. So, the active local people are either eliminated or forcibly expelled from these occupied territories to maintain control over them.

This message also clearly appeals to the active minority: either you leave, or we destroy you. And to the majority: you will repeat their (the captured people’s—Ed.) fate if you even attempt to do anything. That is why the fate of those illegally detained under the occupation is so terrible. This violence is demonstrative because Russia uses fear as a tool. It’s how it controls the territories—with the help of fear.

A general lack of experience shapes the perception of occupation in the West. I see this very clearly. When you encounter people from Eastern Europe whose parents experienced Soviet occupation and then people from Western Europe or the United States who have never known what Russia is like—they have two very different perspectives. The hell that millions of Ukrainians are currently enduring in the occupied territories is the result of the total impunity Russia has indulged in for decades, if not longer. When we talk about World War II, we always mention the Nuremberg Trials, where Nazi war criminals were punished for the international crimes they committed. However, the Soviet Gulag system was never punished or condemned for the extermination of indigenous peoples, forced deportations, collectivization, mass repressions, labor camps, or the man-made famine of the Holodomor genocide.

Everything the Soviet regime did to its citizens in the so-called Soviet republics has never been reckoned with or addressed legally. That impunity has become a part of Russian culture. What they did then in the Soviet Union is what they are doing again now. History is repeating itself. So, people in countries that have had any contact with this reality understand what is happening. Those who haven’t tend to believe that in the 21st century, people have become more civilized and that it’s universally understood that you can’t kill, torture, or forcibly erase entire nations from the face of the earth. But the truth is, the “civilized society” stratum constitutes a very thin layer, unevenly spread around the globe. In those places in the world where the culture of impunity thrives instead, people truly believe they have the right to invade other countries, kill those who disagree, and erase their identity. I always ask myself: no one in Western societies would even think to suggest, “Let’s just leave the people living in territories occupied by ISIS to ISIS.” No one would say that because everyone understands that ISIS is pure evil. Even if there is no ability to liberate those territories, such proposals would not be voiced on the international stage. The world knows very little about what Russian occupation is truly like. Or they don’t want to know. We had sent dozens of reports to the UN, the OSCE, the Council of Europe, the European Union, and foreign governments for eight years before the full-scale invasion. We tried to get this topic into foreign media. No one was interested in what was happening.

The world only paid attention to Russia’s crimes in Ukraine after the full-scale invasion, when the war came very close to the borders of Western societies, and when some responsible politicians finally started to realize that if Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, he will go further. What would that mean for someone living in a developed democracy?

Imagine a young woman; let’s say her name is Anna. She lives in Stockholm and works in IT. Our experience indicates that everything Anna considers a normal life will disappear if her city is occupied by the Russians, just as it has happened to many cities in Ukraine. The ability to speak her mind will vanish. The ability to vote for whomever she wants will be taken away. If Anna writes something critical on social networks, she will end up in the basement and will be raped and tortured—no one knows for how long the torture will last and whether she will be able to survive there. Anna will be forced to send her children to a militarized school, where they will sing the Russian national anthem during lessons. If she decides to preserve her children’s native identity, perhaps by pursuing online homeschooling,

Anna will be explicitly told that if her child doesn’t physically attend school, she will lose her parental rights; her child will be handed over to a Russian family to be “properly” raised. Anna will no longer be able to pray to the God she has chosen for herself. Anna won’t be able to love whomever she chooses.

Let’s imagine Anna is a member of the LGBTQ+ community. In that case, her personal life becomes impossible. The Russian Supreme Court has declared the LGBTQ+ movement an “extremist organization” and banned its activities. If you are part of the LGBTQ+ community and openly express your identity, it means you are supposedly part of some spectral “international LGBTQ+ movement.” Anna will have no way to protect her property. If, for instance, someone takes a liking to her apartment, they could simply delate her to the authorities, and that’s it—Anna will either end up in prison or be deported to a remote region of Russia, and the apartment will be given to the “right person.” That means living in constant fear. It’s not just about living with double standards, where you hide who you are, what God you worship, or which language you consider your native one. This is a life where you must actively demonstrate loyalty to Russian culture, the presence of which is imposed by force.

For our Anna, there are no legal mechanisms for protection, neither in Russia nor on the territories it has occupied. Russia ignores international law and the rulings of international organizations. In 2022, the International Court of Justice issued a protective measure ordering Russia to cease military actions and withdraw its troops from Ukraine immediately. If Russia ignored a ruling from the International Court of Justice, what can be said about any other human rights mandates from international organizations?

We understand that for foreigners, Russian culture is about Russian ballet, Dostoevsky, and Tchaikovsky. But in reality, Russian culture, as we’ve experienced it, is the bodies of civilians with their hands tied behind their backs that were found in the streets, lying there under the open sky until the Ukrainian army liberated those cities. It’s when, first, Russian tanks arrive in Kherson, and then banners of Pushkin follow—like road signs, marking the new borders of the empire on the territories they’ve seized. Because the empire has a center but no borders. If the empire has energy, it constantly expands. What people in other countries still fail to understand is that they are only safe because Ukrainians continue to resist. If Putin isn’t stopped here, he will move further.

Culture is the established patterns of behavior in a given society. However, the attention of the audience is often focused on musical works, literature, or paintings, most of which were created many years ago. Behind this facade, which is actively used by Russian state propaganda, it is difficult to see how people think, how they view the world, what decisions they make, and what actions they take. I always say that we deal with the consequences of Russian culture. Our task now is to deconstruct one of the fundamental pillars of Russian culture—impunity. We are restoring people’s names, restoring their human dignity, and affirming that every life matters.

That is, regardless of a person’s social background, financial status, the nature of the crime (which happened to them—Ed.), or whether the media or international organizations are interested in the fate of that person, an ordinary, simple person living under occupation. We are interested and will fight to ensure that those who committed evil against this ordinary person are held accountable. Our work brings hope that Russian culture, with its patterns of behavior rooted in impunity, may change in the future.

We are dealing with a truly racist culture. If you study the works of Pushkin or Lermontov, you can see how degrading they are and in what terms they describe the people of the Caucasus. This imperial trait is now manifesting in how mobilization primarily targets the male populations of Russia’s minority groups and indigenous peoples—Buryats, Ingush, people from Chechnya, and Tatarstan. I have spoken with representatives of Russia’s indigenous peoples. They say that they have long been under threat of annihilation. Russia forbids their language and culture. In the Republic of Tatarstan, learning in their native language is prohibited in universities. And when you speak your own people’s language, you are treated as a second-class citizen. On top of that, Russia exploits their natural resources. Just look at what is happening with Lake Baikal. Russia keeps indigenous peoples in poverty, destroys their cultural elites, or assimilates them. And now, as they (the indigenous people—Ed.) say, “We will lose our male population as well, and that will be the end—we will disappear.” This, too, is a racist element of the imperial culture, which grinds down all the subjugated peoples within the Russian Empire.

The global achievements of Russian culture are being used as tools for the assimilation and destruction of other people’s cultures. The Kremlin has enlisted figures like Tchaikovsky, Dostoevsky, and Pushkin to serve its agenda. This is typical of all empires, which use imperial culture and language to erase the cultures and languages of others. In essence, there is nothing new here. What is surprising, however, is that this is happening in the 21st century. All other empires have either ceased to exist, reexamined their imperial legacy, or are in the process of doing so. Yet Russia remains an empire trying to survive in the modern age. This situation reflects poorly on the international community, which for years has never given a voice to the indigenous peoples of Russia. It is as if they do not exist, as if all 140 million people of the Russian Federation are simply “Russians.” It is as if there is no Yakutia, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Chechnya, Tatarstan, or the peoples of Siberia. The international community has refused to see or hear them, and through this silence, it has tacitly supported the empire in its destruction of these peoples.

I can understand how someone from outside of Ukraine might struggle to imagine what is happening here. Let me share a personal story. When the full-scale invasion began, the evil intensified, and we were confronted with an unprecedented amount of human suffering. At the same time, because of my work on international mechanisms for accountability, I had to start traveling abroad as early as May 2022 to work on this issue. I remember the stark contrast between the reality I was working with and the beautiful cities like Berlin, Geneva, Washington, Rome, and Paris. The trips became very long since we don’t have any functioning airports. It takes two days to leave the country and two days to return. It’s exhausting, expensive, and time-consuming. So, I began grouping my trips back-to-back, embarking on “tours” that lasted for several weeks. Then, I would return home to work on-site. I noticed that by the fourth day or so of these trips in 2022, I started feeling like I was going crazy. It was as if everything I was talking about couldn’t possibly be true. It couldn’t be real. In Paris, people were smiling, drinking coffee, and going about their lives. And here I was talking about filtration camps, about how people were being killed and tortured right at that very moment in the dozens of identified detention sites. It just couldn’t be true! I thought I must be losing my mind. This split in my perception would only go away when I returned home quickly. Once back, that feeling disappeared, and I realized I was fine it was just our new reality now. I just wanted to say that even for me, someone who has been working on this since 2014, it took about a year for my psyche to accept this horrific reality fully.

Today, we can only truly be understood by a foreigner with a similar experience or someone with highly developed empathy and a willingness to make an intellectual effort. No words can fully convey this experience. When I say “filtration camp,” someone can watch a video, listen to or read testimonies. But reading or seeing is entirely different from living it. And honestly, I genuinely wish that no one ever has to go through this experience because it is truly horrific. But this creates a gap, a chasm. You can read about shelling, know about it, and see photos. But it’s an entirely different experience when you are the one digging through rubble with your hands, like this girl, Sophia, whom my colleagues interviewed.

She was trying to dig out her mother from the wreckage of their home, the basement where they were hiding, just after it had been destroyed. She tries to explain her experience, saying, “I had nothing—only my hands. Russian planes were flying overhead, and I was terrified they would drop another bomb, but I had to dig out my mother so she could breathe.” Only after that did she run to find help. But her mother died. You can read about this, but until you experience it, you cannot truly understand what it is.

It seemed to me that even this level of understanding should have been enough to unite forces and stop Russian aggression. It should have been enough. People shouldn’t have to experience this horror themselves to understand that evil must be punished. If for no other reason, it’s because unpunished evil grows and spreads across the globe. Other dictators observe Russia’s actions, see that Russia hasn’t been punished for them, and realize that the international system isn’t working. We live under the illusion of laws and some security and human rights protection. But in reality, your safety guarantees in today’s world depend solely on where you happen to live—whether you live in a country with a strong military potential and people willing to take up arms to defend themselves (because sometimes you have the former but not the latter). And this is a very dangerous world. Suppose we fail to stop evil now when the international system is crumbling, and dictators are challenging it to take more for themselves in this emerging world of power rather than the world of law. In that case, we’ll find ourselves in such turbulence that no one will be safe.

If the world unites only in “deep concern,” then Russia will not stop. The logic of authoritarian leaders is very clear. They only respect power. And as long as we lack sufficient international support, Russia uses this time to advance, capturing new settlements. We currently have dozens of reports of new abductions, the use of people as human shields, and killings, and we can do nothing about it. 

Meanwhile, international partners prohibit Ukraine from striking back with the weapons provided. In other words, Russia can attack homes, hospitals, museums, and schools from its territory. At the same time, Ukraine is not allowed to strike military targets from which these attacks are launched on Russian territory. And so, Russia is slowly digging deeper and deeper into Ukraine because even with the weapons we have, we’re not allowed to utilize them fully.

We lack world leaders who understand that beyond short-term consequences, there are long-term implications and also a sense of historical responsibility. Simply put, the current Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression is shaping our shared future—specifically, what the new international security system will look like and what it will be based on. Russia is betting that Ukraine will eventually run out of power and that the West will remain indecisive. Russia has significant military capabilities and allies supplying weapons: Iran and North Korea. Syria votes in favor of Russia at the UN. China helps by importing technologies for the war. If you look at these allies, they represent very different cultures. Different histories, different geographies. But there’s something that unites all these authoritarian regimes: how they view human beings. They see people as objects to be controlled. They deny people dignity, freedom, and rights. Democracies, on the other hand, see their primary role as protecting the individual, their dignity, rights, and freedoms. That’s why autocracy and democracy will never find common ground. The very existence of a free world is a threat to dictators, as it means they may one day lose their power.

Before February 2022, I understood that a major war could happen. The war had already been going on, and it was a big war for those living in the conflict zones or occupied territories. For them, the war had been “big” since 2014. Their families were already divided, their homes destroyed, and their loved ones tortured. So, this distinction between a “small” and “big” war doesn’t make sense to them. But for me, it does—because I lived far from the front lines, in Kyiv, where I was focused on documenting the situation. I understood that this policy of encouraging the aggressor would soon lead to negative consequences. I remember traveling to Berlin and Washington with my colleagues to explain why the Nord Stream pipeline mustn’t be built. We said that they would launch a full-scale invasion once Russia completed it. The only question for me was when. And whether I was ready for it. It’s one thing to understand intellectually, but another to experience that reality. I never expected what was coming. I was just… I mean, you can’t prepare yourself for a full-scale invasion. We had security plans and knew what we needed to do as a team, but how did that help when faced with such an overwhelming amount of human suffering that just knocks you off your feet? When there’s nothing you can do to save people, to protect them. You can’t protect anyone—not even yourself.

I stayed in Kyiv when Russian forces surrounded the city. I understood very clearly what was happening and what the Russians would do to me and other active people in the city if they entered. I felt anger, and that anger drove me like it was fuel. I always work hard, but I worked harder than ever in those first weeks and months of the invasion. Frankly speaking, what’s the point of taking vitamins or going for walks in the fresh air when you don’t even know if you’ll be alive tomorrow? You just try to do as much as you can with the time you have. And I felt anger because I thought, “What right do they have?” Just ten years ago, we stood up in the Revolution of Dignity and earned our chance to build a democratic country. And now they tell you, No, you don’t have that right. They’re coming to show you your place. It’s like what Russian soldiers said to the people we interviewed, “You’re living too well. Who gave you the right to live like this? You should live like us.”

These are two completely different cultures: Ukrainian and Russian. Sociological surveys prove that we are two distinct nations. Take Hofstede’s cultural dimensions or the World Value Survey. Ukrainians always prioritize freedom. We don’t have a sacred attitude toward power; we maintain a very short distance from it. Russians answer all these questions in a completely different way. Different people, different nations.

I felt immense anger because they came to tell us who we are and how we should live. That may be why I decided to stay in Kyiv back then. It was perhaps irrational. Realistically, what could I have done if the Russians had taken to the streets of my city? But it was my city. My family and friends and the people I love are here. I wasn’t going to leave. I remember we celebrated each morning as a victory, having made it through another night, because let’s not forget that that was when we weren’t getting the help we needed. Not just Putin but even our international partners believed Ukraine had no chance against such a massive military machine. Ukraine received the first modern tank only a year after the start of the full-scale invasion.

Besides anger, love was the second emotion I felt during those first weeks and months. Because I saw an incredible wave of solidarity among ordinary people—so many ordinary people who, in their ways, started doing extraordinary things. And in that darkness, amidst the cruelty and horror, they showed the best examples of what it means to be human. I felt love, and I’m glad this emotion eventually became my dominant one. You can’t get far on anger alone.

Russia manipulates the vocabulary of the Genocide Convention, trying to justify its unprovoked aggression by claiming it’s protecting the Russian-speaking population of Donbas. But the ruling of the International Court of Justice has already made it crystal clear that there’s no legitimate basis for the invasion of Ukraine. If you look at the numbers, it’s Russia that has killed the largest number of Russian-speaking people in Ukraine. Just look at the photos of Vovchansk and other cities now. Look at what these “liberators” are doing. They steal washing machines and rape women in front of their children.

I wonder why, after ten years of war, people still seriously ask me what I think about Putin’s latest speech. Why are you even listening to him at all? Back in March 2014, he was saying that the Russian military wasn’t in Crimea, anyone could buy a Russian uniform at any military surplus store, that they weren’t there, and that no one really knew what was happening. For years, he claimed there was a civil war in eastern Ukraine. His inner circle insisted that there would be no full-scale invasion and that the West was just escalating the situation. Why are we still believing his words?

I think this is a universal trait of all authoritarian regimes—they always lie. They are built on lies. That’s why Václav Havel, when fighting against the Soviet Union, came up with the concept of “living within the truth.” Even if you can’t destroy the lies, you can at least choose not to live by them. That means calling black “black” and white “white.” I just don’t understand why, after ten years of war, I’m still expected to seriously comment on what the Russian leadership says when they’ve lied so openly so many times.

But many people in the world don’t want to accept this because they don’t want to step out of their comfort zone, don’t want to admit that evil will only stop when it’s confronted, and don’t want to take bold steps and assume responsibility. Many think, “Maybe we can negotiate; it’s so unprofitable to wage war, and it’s irrational in today’s world.” They simply don’t understand, due to living in another culture, that Putin is not insane. He’s very pragmatic. For decades, he’s been forcing the West to accept what Russia does as a “fait accompli.” In Georgia or Syria, when they said the use of chemical weapons was a “red line,” it later became clear there was no “red line,” and Putin realized he could keep going further. The West similarly failed the test with the occupation of Crimea. Because—what was that? It was the first annexation after World War II. There hadn’t been anything like it for decades, not in our part of the world. No annexations. He saw the weak reaction and realized, “So this is possible? Okay, let’s keep going.”

Those who propose leaving territories under occupation are not telling the truth. They should be honest and say, “Let’s leave these people to death and torture.” Because it’s about people, not land—say it openly. Don’t call it peace; don’t call it a compromise. And let that be remembered in history. Because peace isn’t an occupation; it’s the freedom to live without the fear of violence.

Predicting the future is a thankless task. I know the future is not predetermined, but no one has written it ahead of time either. And I know for sure that everything we’re doing now matters. Our efforts, our struggle, are shaping that future. And that’s worth a lot—to have a chance to fight for the future we want for ourselves and our children.

The full version of the interview is in the 3rd volume of “Living the War: Under Occupation During the Russian War Against Ukraine.”