Ukrainian human rights lawyer discusses her work exposing hidden stories of the war

(NEW YORK) — Oleksandra Matviichuk works to expose stories about the war in Ukraine. The Ukrainian human rights lawyer leads advocacy group the Centre for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.

Matviichuk acknowledged the severe personal impact of Russia’s war crimes. She sees opportunities to bring war criminals to justice before the war ends, restore the rule of law and create a just future.

ABC News’ Linsey Davis sat down with Matviichuk to discuss the ongoing threat to Ukraine.

ABC NEWS: Our next guest is a Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work exposing the hidden and underreported stories of the war in Ukraine. Oleksandra Matviichuk has documented more than 80,000 war crimes committed by Russia and is using her platform to inform people all around the world about the conflict.

Oleksandra, thank you so much for joining us tonight. We are almost three years into this war. So many, of course, have been forced to flee their homes. But you decided to stay in Kyiv. Why did you decide to stay? What’s life like for you?

MAVIICHUK: Because this is my home, and I think it’s a very choice to fight for freedom, for my country, for my people, and to defend human dignity. Even in this situation, when the law doesn’t work because Russia ignore all norms of international law and all decisions of international organizations.

ABC NEWS: You had the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine recognized with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022 for turning the horrors of war into action and documenting thousands of human rights violations. How is this information processed and what do you hope comes to light through your organization’s efforts?

MAVIICHUK: When large scale war started, we united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions. We built national network of local commentators. We covered the whole country, including the occupied territories.

And working together, we jointly documented more than 80,000 episodes of war crimes. But what we are literally doing while this war turned people into the numbers, we are returning people their names because people are not numbers.

ABC NEWS: And Ukraine is of course, your country, Ukrainians, your people. Many of these stories you documented, I’m sure, hit so close to home. How do you deal with this at an emotional level and what keeps you going?

MAVIICHUK: Frankly speaking, it’s difficult because we face with enormous amount of crimes, which mean that we face this enormous amount of human fates. But what keeps me going, it’s people, because ordinary people in Ukraine now doing extraordinary things.

It were ordinary people who help to survive under artillery fire. It were ordinary people who took people out from the ruined cities. It were ordinary people who broke through the encirclement to provide humanitarian aid. And now it became obvious that ordinary people fighting for their freedom and human dignity are stronger that even the second army of the world.

ABC NEWS: You are also a seasoned human rights lawyer. You’ve been calling for Vladimir Putin to be tried in what’s called a special tribunal. Can you explain how this would work in holding him accountable?

MAVIICHUK: We have four types of international crimes: it’s war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and crime of aggression. And Russia is committing all these four types of international crimes. And the problem is that there is no international court which can prosecute Putin and his surroundings for the crime of aggression.

And that is why I am advocating to create a special tribunal on aggression and to hold Putin and his surrounding accountable. Because all these crimes, which we have documented, it’s a result of their leadership decision to start this war and to broke the peace.

ABC NEWS: Russia’s attacks have been relentless. Just today, we learned that a Russian missile killed three people and injured a dozen in south east Ukraine. At this point, what do you think the possible scenarios are for this war to ultimately come to an end?

MAVIICHUK: We have to go to this sustainable peace through strength because dictators are coward. They afraid only of strength, and we have to demonstrate it. And Russia has a goal to occupy and destroy Ukraine even more. Russia wants to forcibly restore Russian empire.

And that is why, in order to get sustainable peace, Ukraine have to get security guarantees which not provide Russia opportunity just to postpone this goal, but to make Russia impossible to achieve this goal in future.

ABC NEWS: Oleksandra Matviichuk we thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate your time.

MAVIICHUK: Thank you.

Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.