Ukrainian Journalist Nataliya Gumenyuk on Russia's Invasion

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Welcome to the Delegates Lounge.
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I'm Alex Tarquinio, a journalist based at the United Nations here in New York City and your emcee for this podcast featuring some of the most influential minds in the world today.
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This is the first episode of the Delegates Lounge published simultaneously to our new YouTube channel.
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In today's episode, we bring you our conversation with the prominent Ukrainian journalist, Nataliya Gumenyuk.
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I was fortunate to meet Natalia at a small gathering in her honor at the Ukrainian Institute of America, a cultural center here in New York that sits across the street from the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Natalia was in town for a few days recently, arriving from London where she gave opening remarks at the world premiere of the Reckoning, a limited-run documentary play that ran at the Arcola Theater in June.
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She is a co-founder of both the Reckoning, a limited-run documentary play that ran at the Arcola Theater in June.
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She is a co-founder of both the Reckoning Project, which gathers testimonies from survivors in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, and the Public Interest Journalism Lab, a Kiev-based NGO focused on an interdisciplinary approach to journalism.
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Natalia is an independent journalist herself, specializing in foreign affairs and conflict reporting.
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She's a regular contributor to international publications like the Atlantic Foreign Affairs and the Guardian.
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Our conversation touches on her recent article for the Atlantic about drone warfare, so we'll include a gift link to that in the show notes.
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We also talked about prisoner swaps, the forced relocation of Ukrainian children, ukraine's Operation Spiderweb, the highly successful covert drone attack deep inside Russia, and Victoria Roshina, the Ukrainian journalist who died in Russian detention.
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Natalia had worked with her to describe Victoria's last reporting trip to the occupied territories before her capture.
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Natalia says Victoria weighed around 35 kilos after her time in Russian captivity.
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For our American listeners that's less than 80 pounds.
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While recording our conversation in Manhattan, we were interrupted by an air raid alert from Kiev on Natalia's phone Proof as if any were needed that Ukrainians can leave the war zone, but the war doesn't entirely leave them.
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Here's our conversation.
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Nataliya Gumenyuk, thank you for joining us in the Delegates' Lounge.
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It's my pleasure.
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I was fortunate enough to meet you at the Ukrainian Institute the other day and hear a little bit of your story.
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So, before 2014 and the war came to Ukraine, you wanted to be a war correspondent and you were a war correspondent.
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Tell us a little bit about that.
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So when I went to the university in uh to Southern, you know it was still kind of Ukraine was post authoritarian country, but there was a very clear idea that the journalism should be independent.
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So I was always interested in the foreign news.
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So I started to work as a foreign news correspondent and, particularly prior to the 2014, to the Russian invasion, I became very interested in the Middle East and the Arab Spring because I was always interested in the idea of people standing up for justice and spent a couple of years traveling around the Middle East, in particular Egypt, iraq, tunisia, all other countries, looking at how my generation was like trying to change something in their countries.
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But in 2013, you know, what we called the Revolution of Dignity started, the Maidan Revolution, which was mainly the protest against police brutality and injustice.
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So I returned home, we co-founded an independent TV station called Hromadsky, which was a grassroots public broadcaster.
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You know, when there is no yet legislation, there is no kind of state structure, but we'll do the media which serves the public.
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And when Russia occupied Crimea, I probably was one of the few fit to go undercover to Crimea, go to the eastern Ukraine and becoming this kind of conflict reporter in my own country.
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By the way, my experience as a foreign correspondent was extremely helpful, particularly because it's very hard to pass to the foreign audience, you know, to tell the story about suffering far away, so they care what I always believe and try to tell the story both to the Ukrainians and now when I'm, for instance, writing for the Americans.
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Actually, suffering is very universal and we often try to portray the conflicts, you know, in this very geopolitical way russian speakers, ukrainian speakers, pro-european, pro-russian and in the middle east, like religious and secular, islamist and liberals, which is not the case.
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People in in the middle east, a lot of them, were fighting against police brutality, police impunity and corruption, and I actually wanted to pass this message that all these fights are, more, you know, relatable In 2014,.
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You know, because the war was taking place somewhere in Crimea, in the eastern Ukraine.
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So after some time, if you live in the capital, you can kind of pretend it's not about you.
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If you live in the capital, you can kind of pretend it's not about you and you can very easy forget.
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You know, like about the people and the Russian occupation at that time.
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So for me, I found this experience of telling the faraway wars to be very helpful first to cut through to the audiences back home, because after a couple of years you know, at first people are excited, there is anxiety, they want to oh, there is a war in ukraine, there are russian soldiers in crimea.
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But after a year people get used to these stories.
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The suffering is still there.
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But it's harder to be in the news when it's the third year of the r-fledged Russian war against Ukraine.
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And, yes, we try also again to tell this story, but now for the global audience, and I really try to do it more relatable.
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What we often hear is there's the Russian speakers and the Ukrainian speakers, there's the people in the East.
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How do you break down those dichotomies and tell people?
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It's not as simplistic as that, so.
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I was telling a lot of story about the Ukrainian, like how diverse is Ukraine in, particularly so the first stories after full scale invasion?
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I would be in bed with a Jewish community, with Ukrainian Muslim community, with people of various backgrounds and also social, social, political backgrounds.
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But it's more or less the mere existence of Ukraine for the Russian authoritarian regime.
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It's irritation because it shows that in our part of the world there could be the functioning democracy that the very similar people, like in Russia, like in Belarus, like in Moldova, can have democratic government, can elect their own authorities and can choose the way they live.
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For the last 35 years Ukraine, with different successes, was still democracy, problematic sometimes, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
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But you have civil society.
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You have, you know, press.
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Some press is bad, some is better, some is, you know, high quality, poor quality, some is politically controlled.
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But we have at least a tradition that it's normal to fight for freedoms, it's normal to think you know to have your opinion.
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And when I'm now reporting about the Russian occupation in the newly occupied territories after 2022, it's very interesting how one of the members of the family of the survivors who survived the Russian detention and tortures told me that in currently occupied territories, ukrainian territories by Russia, it's enough to have own opinion, to be suspicious and to be detained, and this is a difference.
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So it's still a dichotomy.
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So it's still a dichotomy, but it's a different dichotomy.
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I've just recently was interviewed by the japanese television.
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They again asked the question about like language and I would say, like what language people in taiwan speak?
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And when I was in touch with singaporean journalists and like korean journalists, uh and the others, they would say like, yeah, yeah, the fact you speak Chinese In Singapore, they also speak Chinese.
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They're a different country and they have a different idea about China than Taiwanese.
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It doesn't mean you support what Beijing does, and I do think that's what Russia is in our part of the world.
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The Russian language and of course it was a language of like empire, it was the language of the big country and it was a professional language because universities were in Russian, the technical jobs you know, like.
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If you want to be considered civilized, you need to know this language, otherwise you would be considered like a village person.
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You know so.
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Even in kiev or leviv, where they might speak ukrainian um at home or with their friends, they would still speak russian at at the university you were supposed to kind of speak russian, to be perceived as a cultural and educated person.
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So you learn and that's make it like that that people speak two languages.
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Of course now the political culture change, you don't have this pressure for 30 years, but I think even in the 90s it was still kind of preserved that you know, the Russian is language of the educated.
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There was a language caste system in essence, even in the 90s.
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Was it sometime in the aughts that it started to change?
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Or was it really the Maidan revolution?
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Because now I think in some parts with some Ukrainians they actually look askance if you speak Russian.
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No, you still, it depends.
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You know, in my generation we used to speak both.
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So, for instance, my sister is five years older than me and I went to the school in 1991.
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That was the year when Ukraine regained its independence, so I went to the school in 1991.
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That was the year when Ukraine regained its independence, so I went to the school, which was Ukrainian speaking.
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She went to the school five years earlier than me and at that time in our town, near Kiev, there was no Ukrainian in her particular school.
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So you know like she developed these habits, which shows that, even like a personal education, the same family people can speak two different languages.
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Uh, at home, and people usually in journalism are more into language.
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So you know my ukrainian is perfect.
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She studied law and in this field it was always russian domination.
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So you know like the laws were written in russian.
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You know like, traditionally, you know those people who studied, like I don't't know, technical science, all these kind of things what happened today?
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Little by little, the Ukrainian became the norm, even in Crimea, even in the eastern Ukraine, because it's like state language.
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But I think that, because we are perfectly a bilingual country, russia is using the language as a pretext for a lot of people, especially in the eastern Ukraine close to the Russian border.
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It's indeed a political stance saying like no, I'll speak Ukrainian outside of home, just to make this political point, which is also important, that the Ukrainian really became kind of a political language.
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So, for instance, the minorities, kremientaros, jewish, polish or wherever, armenian, georgians, roma, because you know, the Russians were still this kind of lingua franca and now they all think like no, we also will speak Ukrainian, just to show our loyalty for this state or this country.
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So the Tatars?
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or now speaking.
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You know Ukrainian in their public life.
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They may speak still Russian at home, but they would like to make this point.
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So this is indeed a fight about different political system authoritarian, you know, democratic, but it's not like bounded that much around ethnicity.
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Now that's a very interesting thing because the Ukrainian military forces are obviously very inventive and one I think potential advantage they have here is that they can understand both the mindset of the Russian war fighting and special ops from their Soviet past.
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But also because they are in that long period of application to NATO, they understand NATO so they can see similarities and differences between those two.
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Yes, and you know what I also found interesting, being, you know, like, embedded in one of the tactical operation centers with one of the brigades intercepts.
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You know, intercepts they, you can do it a lot.
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People speak, mobile phones, something, and they really work hard on intercepting the Russian Russian stalking behind the line.
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By the way, I should also say when I was speaking in spring, quite a few different units reconfirmed that what they intercepted in the Russians speaking, they were all telling like, oh, we need to keep little because there is Trump in there.
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So you know, like, he's on our side and it's a bit, we'll soon win it, which was also paradoxically, that's what Russians say in their, their intercepts.
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I'm not telling anything, I'm just retelling.
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I'm speaking about this spring.
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So they were kind of reinforced that it's just a bit soon.
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You know the trump will get us the best deal possible for the russians.
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But in any case, you know, like, how do soldiers speak slang?
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Slang, it's not a normal language, if you're even a best translator to know it, like as a native person.
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But it was paradoxical.
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I understood that like half of the words actually slang.
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So a normal translator would never know.
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And it's a bit of the benefit of the ukrainians to understand also the russian slang but they monitor each other on telegram, or so I hear.
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Um, the russians won't get the ukrainian slang, they don't know Ukrainian.
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Well, the other thing that's relatively new, because you are a young country, is the tradition of independent journalism, because it is only a little more than 30 years since you were independent of the Soviet Union.
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Have you noticed a change from when you were first a journalism student?
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Has the real sense of independent journalism as an important aspect that just everyday Ukrainians would see it as being important?
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Or was it really Maidan that changed that?
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So the independent journalism mattered a lot and there is a particular trauma in our country.
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In 2001, a famous Ukrainian journalist, georgi Gangadze, one of the founders of the first online publication, ukrainska Pravda, was killed.
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Later there was an investigation.
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He was kidnapped and he was killed on the command of the Minister of Interior.
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There is still not a clear finding whether the former president, leonid Kuchma, was behind that, but it was the case, which also led later to protest and was a part of the, you know, anti-authoritarian protests in Ukraine early 2000s, exactly in the time when I was in the university.
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So there is something in Ukrainian kind of journalistic DNA that you don't trust authorities.
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It's overcritical to the government.
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It was like that.
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It is like that by default, if you want to be a good journalist in Ukraine, you are supposed to criticize the government.
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That's how we are, that's how we were taught.
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Of course, there was this bigger oligarchic owned channels and indeed they were controlled by our oligarchs, by the government, in different times.
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But there was, by the way, what is interesting, also the competition between the oligarchs owing the political kind of channels.
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But since 2014, the system is kind of broken.
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We do have a public broadcaster, have a public broadcaster.
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Also, the role of these private companies is smaller and we have a very strong environment of the independent media.
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Of course, the money is a problem, so a lot of Ukrainian independent media was supported by international donors.
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But by 2022, we have like the thousands of independent Ukrainian media and, what is also important, that despite the full scale invasion, we preserve this pluralism.
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But interesting enough that for the whole three years we do have leaks, we do have scandals, we do have political investigations into the military security.
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You know very sensitive ones, but they are discussed.
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There are cases when you know the general would be fired because of the journalistic story.
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There are cases when you know the general would be fired because of the journalistic story.
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So it's both.
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You know, like I'm not saying that the Ukrainian army is perfect, but for me, this kind of unfortunate cases of investigation into the Ukrainian security forces during the war even if sometimes it's actually shows not about the problem, about the you you know like what's happening with the security service, because I don't believe they're perfect ever, but still you do that in the country at war and I do think it's extremely important.
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Even sometimes I would say that we can be over critical, but I do think it's the way how we preserve our kind of sanity as professionals.
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The more things change, the more they stay same, because some of what you're describing could be here or almost anywhere with the free press.
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Ukrainians are very outspoken, right.
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In Ukraine prior to the full-scale invasion.
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Actually journalists almost fight with the president Like I'm literally saying they would yell at the president.
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It became a bit less heated during the first year of the full-skin invasion but I think still in the press conferences the Ukrainian journalists would still you know, like tell the long story about what's wrong with the way you run the country.
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Zelensky's performance in the Oval Office was that, viewed well.
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Did that improve his popularity ratings?
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Yeah, it definitely improved his popularity ratings.
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I think the idea that he said that you know, like we don't play cards, we're here not about playing cards I think that was a major thing.
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You know, like to nail it down, that it's serious about human life.
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It's not a joke, you know, and it's quite unfortunate, you know, like the trust to the US, which is diminishing.
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His popularity must be higher recently with the Operation Spiderweb, or does that reflect on the president?
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I mean, in the United States, if there's a hugely successful operation, there usually is a reflection of the presidential polls?
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Yes, but you know, to be honest, I'm very cautious about the polls.
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But yes, yeah, of course, of course.
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I mean, obviously they're the same civilians that are under, if possible, even more rocket fire.
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But is that still true?
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positively, I think it's very important to say that there is no kind of reason for escalation.
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The idea about the escalation is the way that Russia wants to save the face, because it's a very practical thing for Ukraine.
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This operation served two goals.
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You destroy some of the Russian equipment which would retaliate, but also you force Russia to probably be more concerned about the targets inside of Russia, so they would have less resources and capabilities to fight against Ukraine.
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So it serves two ways to constrain Russians, but again, like we think about that as something very, very practical.
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Is there a little bit of an audience of one for this that both the Russians and, obviously, the Ukrainian administration are trying to reach Donald Trump?
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The Ukrainian administration is definitely trying to reach out to Trump.
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The US is an important player.
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Tragic part in this war is that the whole world, not just Ukraine, found itself being dependent on the American air defense, because it's just the plateaued missile system which are capable to stop the Russian ballistic missiles.
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All the rest is doable.
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That is a bit like on the mercy of Donald Trump.
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So, overall, ukraine definitely doesn't want to have the bad relations with the United States.
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You really don't want to throw the bad relations with the United States.
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You really don't want to throw the United States into the Russian hands.
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Tell us a little bit about the Public Interest Journalism Lab.
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Is this one of the reasons that you founded that, or you co-founded it?
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So we created this organization, public Interest Journalism Lab, more or less trying to explore how you speak to the audiences which do not care about human rights and sensitive issues and how do you reach to the people who distrust you with also kind of critical message because I was also reporting a lot from the US that polarization creates the best ground for conspiratorial thinking, for distrust, for, you know, like for erosion of democracy, and it just happened the day we founded COVID started.
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At that time we were all investigating the ways you report about the vaccination, so people trust the vaccines, and it's a very interesting finding.
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Instead of mocking the people, you really need to answer their real concerns.
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That was a huge insight because then, when the full-scale invasion, you know, started, I'm always saying we need to answer the questions of the audience, we really need to figure out what are those vulnerabilities and, by default, to find the ways to tell the sensitive story in a way that people would trust us.
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What we learned the number one thing from the sensitive story in the way that people would trust us?
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What we learned the number one thing from the Russian propaganda?
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Because beyond that they lie bluntly.
00:22:30.256 --> 00:22:32.883
They, you know like, dehumanize Ukrainians.
00:22:32.883 --> 00:22:42.170
What they do, they try to look into the vulnerabilities in our own society, exploit them and then bring all conspiracies.
00:22:42.170 --> 00:22:50.210
And then if you kind of persuade people to believe in conspiracies, then they can feed other conspiracies into them about the Russia, about the war, about something.
00:22:50.570 --> 00:22:59.761
So one of your objectives at the lab is to elevate truthful journalism above disinformation and all that we see on the social media.
00:22:59.970 --> 00:23:20.959
Well, it's obviously very dangerous to do journalism now in Ukraine, particularly in the occupied territories or near the front lines, and I don't know if this falls more within your public journalism lab hat or the reckoning project, but I do know that you said there are 35 journalists actually being held by Russia.
00:23:20.959 --> 00:23:43.634
Now that you know of right, and you also knew Victoria Roshnia, or you were her editor and for listeners, I'm sure our listeners are familiar with this terrible case, but when her body was returned finally from Russia, there were signs of torture and some of her organs had been removed.
00:23:43.634 --> 00:23:46.980
So you knew her personally and had worked with her, is that?
00:23:47.040 --> 00:23:47.321
right.
00:23:47.321 --> 00:24:07.530
This is a very sad story of a very courageous Ukrainian journalist who worked at Hromadske for quite some years, a very determined, young female investigative reporter very much a bit too much passionate about, you know, like the duty to serve her public.
00:24:07.530 --> 00:24:13.483
So she risked her life literally to go to report the life under the occupation.
00:24:13.483 --> 00:24:18.699
She disappeared at some time it was summer 2023.
00:24:18.699 --> 00:24:20.663
And then we figure out that she was detained detained in comunicado.
00:24:20.663 --> 00:24:21.505
What we learned later she is a journalist.
00:24:21.505 --> 00:24:23.950
You know that she was detained, detained in comunicado.
00:24:23.950 --> 00:24:26.623
What we learned later she is a journalist.
00:24:26.623 --> 00:24:27.950
You know she was on the assignment.
00:24:27.950 --> 00:24:30.950
She was, after some time, moved to Russian territory.
00:24:30.950 --> 00:24:34.930
She was tortured, she was treated inhumanly.
00:24:34.930 --> 00:24:38.996
She had a very poor health conditions, you know like.
00:24:38.996 --> 00:24:44.704
She was probably like thirty five kilos because of some you know health care issues.
00:24:45.710 --> 00:24:54.884
And in autumn 2024, her father received the note from the Russian defense ministry that she's dead.
00:24:54.884 --> 00:24:59.961
Then it took some time to retrieve her body back to Ukraine.
00:24:59.961 --> 00:25:02.076
It was confirmed that it was her.
00:25:02.076 --> 00:25:04.877
You know the family is still a bit in denial.
00:25:04.877 --> 00:25:07.615
But what is, for me, striking in that regard?
00:25:07.615 --> 00:25:20.734
Of course, the Russians are in charge and they're responsible for what happened, because what we know that she was in poor health conditions already since December 2023.
00:25:20.734 --> 00:25:24.681
That's what people who were with her the same kind of cells told.
00:25:24.681 --> 00:25:33.221
So by september 2024, let's say like 10 months, at any given moment, they could let her go.
00:25:33.221 --> 00:25:43.682
If there is this kind of girl like 27, which is like 35 kilos, you either gave some medical support, let her go.
00:25:43.682 --> 00:25:45.125
Let her go.
00:25:46.046 --> 00:26:05.917
And for me, the as her former editor, as a colleague, what is the most frightening is that is our inability to do something about that because, compared to quite a lot of local reporters whose names we don't know, even in Ukraine, because this about small town, some local papers, it was like quite a prominent case.
00:26:05.917 --> 00:26:07.299
We all knew her.
00:26:07.299 --> 00:26:08.721
She's in the capital.
00:26:08.721 --> 00:26:11.105
She writes for the major independent media.
00:26:11.105 --> 00:26:12.593
We are well connected.
00:26:12.593 --> 00:26:19.893
We speak for the committee to protect journalism, for she got a word for for the International media women foundation.
00:26:19.893 --> 00:26:25.160
You know I was speaking at every single not just myself events like UNESCO Press Freedom Day.
00:26:25.160 --> 00:26:45.152
You're working for you know, like you're working and covering the UN a lot A year ago we were at the panel in particularly at the UNESCO Press Freedom Day in Chile, where we did the panel and we screened the documentary you watched, and we brought those journalists from who experienced occupation to that panel.
00:26:45.593 --> 00:26:51.352
So all the people who kind of in charge of the press freedoms in the world were there.
00:26:51.352 --> 00:26:54.238
She was still alive at that point.
00:26:54.238 --> 00:27:00.970
So we were there saying making the point like this is a documentary about what's happening to the ukrainian journalists in the occupation.
00:27:00.970 --> 00:27:03.517
Here are the journalists who survived occupation.
00:27:03.517 --> 00:27:04.861
Here is our colleague.
00:27:04.861 --> 00:27:06.315
She's somewhere in Russia.
00:27:06.315 --> 00:27:09.219
She's quite know what we can do about that.
00:27:09.219 --> 00:27:13.642
And then, four months after, we received this note about her death.
00:27:14.170 --> 00:27:16.598
So for me it's more about this frustration.
00:27:16.598 --> 00:27:26.061
You know that now, of course we can establish the fellowship of her name, as it often happens in case of the deceased journalist.
00:27:26.061 --> 00:27:30.700
But that's why I want to bring to attention that there are these other 35.
00:27:30.700 --> 00:27:32.330
We haven't saved Victoria.
00:27:32.330 --> 00:27:35.498
Can we save others, at least some of them?
00:27:35.498 --> 00:27:37.020
Can we be more bold?
00:27:37.020 --> 00:27:47.643
I know it's difficult, I know it depends on Russia, but I do think if these institutions exist, if these committees exist, you know we still need to kind of give a try.
00:27:47.643 --> 00:27:49.766
I don't blame anybody, I do understand.
00:27:49.766 --> 00:27:55.063
I talk to a lot of leaders of these institutions, but I just find how kind of they feel powerless.
00:27:55.063 --> 00:27:57.257
I just don't want us to give up.
00:27:58.230 --> 00:27:59.332
Advocacy is difficult.
00:27:59.332 --> 00:28:04.102
Although the Committee to Protect Journalists, they can really only raise awareness.
00:28:04.102 --> 00:28:09.440
It's in fact the heads of state and government that have to put pressure on for this.
00:28:09.440 --> 00:28:13.498
The advocacy group kind of comes to a level and then their influence stops.
00:28:13.498 --> 00:28:19.955
I mean, that brings us to what you're doing with the Reckoning Project as a co-founder.
00:28:19.955 --> 00:28:25.551
First, can we talk a little bit about how what the Reckoning Project does, that's different from journalism.
00:28:25.551 --> 00:28:37.952
You are in fact involved in the documentation of potential war crimes and other incidents for the future that may in fact be used in legal proceedings as well as journalism.
00:28:37.952 --> 00:28:38.534
Is that right?
00:28:38.974 --> 00:28:40.038
Absolutely so.
00:28:40.038 --> 00:28:49.116
We've been reporting the Russian invasion before 2022, of a different scale still and as soon as the full scale invasion started.
00:28:49.116 --> 00:29:02.661
It was very first hours, even not days, when we talked to colleague Peter Pomerantsev, the quite a known researcher on propaganda, british journalist of the Ukrainian region who lives here in the US.
00:29:02.661 --> 00:29:07.534
Journalists of the Ukrainian region who lives here in the US.
00:29:07.534 --> 00:29:27.135
Peter kind of met at Yale University, janine Giovanni, quite an also known war correspondent with international background, an American one, who covered war in Syria and the others where the citizen journalists were recording the testimonies of the survivors, of the witnesses of the human rights violation, in order to create the archive about the possible litigation.
00:29:27.636 --> 00:29:35.662
But contrary to that experience of these various UN projects, ukraine has a very capable journalistic community.
00:29:35.662 --> 00:30:12.987
We're doing films, we have the production company, so the Public Interest Journalism Lab right away, together with Janine Peter, the lawyers, we created a couple of months later the Reckoning Project, which is, in a nutshell, we speak to the direct survivors of the war crimes, not just people who saw something sad, tragic, during the war, but those who either were witnesses or survivors themselves, so their testimony can be used for litigation or for all this kind of inquiries which the United Nations committees will use.
00:30:12.987 --> 00:30:19.303
But in order to do so, we should be trained in how to speak to the people who live through traumatic experience.
00:30:19.303 --> 00:30:22.018
By the way, also with the support of the DART.
00:30:22.038 --> 00:30:22.338
Center.
00:30:22.338 --> 00:30:26.519
So the DART Center, I should say, is at Columbia University and deals with trauma journalism.
00:30:26.539 --> 00:30:28.994
Yes, so I was like I did not know it had a relationship with the.
00:30:29.035 --> 00:30:29.517
DART Center.
00:30:29.517 --> 00:30:30.179
That's interesting.
00:30:30.892 --> 00:30:34.394
So I knew DART Center quite early before, so I called them on board.
00:30:34.394 --> 00:30:46.771
You know I'm hiring the journalists who probably do not have this experience of working in such intensity with the survivors, and that would be our endeavor for the next years.
00:30:46.771 --> 00:30:56.123
Can you please, like, teach us how to care about those people and how to care about ourselves so we learn from dart about, you know, trauma-centric journalism.
00:30:56.123 --> 00:30:59.512
We learn from the syrian colleagues and the janine's experience.
00:30:59.512 --> 00:31:11.844
You know this experience of documentation and as of now, there is a separate NGO, trp, run by Janine DiGiovanni, but we collected over 600 testimonies of the survivors.
00:31:12.810 --> 00:31:23.156
In all cases, it's a very lengthy conversation done in a very neutral way, so it cannot be dismissed by the judge because there were leading questions.
00:31:23.156 --> 00:31:26.223
So no leading questions and a lot of details.
00:31:26.223 --> 00:31:29.941
So, for instance, we won't ask the questions what did Russia do to you?
00:31:29.941 --> 00:31:32.557
We would ask what did happen with you at that day?
00:31:32.557 --> 00:31:33.901
Whom have you seen?
00:31:33.901 --> 00:31:35.796
How did these people look like?
00:31:35.796 --> 00:31:37.374
What language did they speak?
00:31:37.374 --> 00:31:39.740
Did they have an accent Like were they civilians?
00:31:39.740 --> 00:31:41.355
What kind of guns do you have?
00:31:41.355 --> 00:31:42.951
Do you remember a call name?
00:31:42.951 --> 00:31:45.515
So also there would be more details.
00:31:45.674 --> 00:31:59.611
So it's both journalism in terms of storytelling, but also you know way more details to be helpful to find facts for investigators and also like the level of neutrality.
00:31:59.611 --> 00:32:13.083
So what we collected could be used, for instance, by the UN Commission for Tortures or UN Human Rights Commission, because you know like maybe sometimes a journalistic interview could be too emotional or would lack some details.
00:32:13.083 --> 00:32:30.323
We're actually doing the better journalism more verified, with more evidence, with more nuance and details, and based on these testimonies the very same testimonies we create articles, documentaries so far over 10 documentaries of different lengths.
00:32:30.323 --> 00:32:34.582
Our first articles were, like with Vanity Fair, time Magazine, the Atlantic.
00:32:34.582 --> 00:32:45.681
Now we're also trying to publish them for the global audiences in Chosun Ilbo in Korea, in Premier Times in Nigeria, in City Press in South Africa, in Infobuy in Argentina.
00:32:45.681 --> 00:32:49.369
And we also believe that what we preserve could be used for culture.
00:32:49.369 --> 00:33:01.792
We have now play developed by the British Theatre Dash Art Centre, which is, you know, at the stage in London, based on the testimonies our team has collected, so it's really dual use.
00:33:01.873 --> 00:33:11.198
There's the legal purposes that it may be used for someday, but now it's being used in terms of the culture, to get your message out and, we believe, also for the memorials, for the memory.
00:33:12.270 --> 00:33:15.221
So, first of all, there are people who are testifying anonymously.
00:33:15.221 --> 00:33:19.221
So, for instance, if they are from occupation, their families are still there.
00:33:19.221 --> 00:33:21.898
We use that for analytical work.
00:33:21.898 --> 00:33:24.298
We are sharing that with the law enforcement.
00:33:24.298 --> 00:33:26.936
We give this data with the consent of the people very important.
00:33:28.019 --> 00:33:31.612
Now your researchers, the reckoning project.
00:33:31.612 --> 00:33:36.685
They interview survivors, witnesses, but also survivors directly.
00:33:36.685 --> 00:33:39.553
The frontline has been fairly stable for some time now.
00:33:39.553 --> 00:33:47.565
Are there more survivors who are walking out, who are somehow escaping, or are they interviewing survivors of areas that have been liberated?
00:33:48.651 --> 00:33:50.797
It's, indeed it's becoming more complicated.
00:33:50.797 --> 00:34:07.875
So it was way easier to collect testimonies in 2022 because there were, let's say, three waves of the liberation in the northern Ukraine, in the southern, in the eastern Ukraine, near Kharkiv, izum, and then later in Kherson.
00:34:07.875 --> 00:34:20.010
So we were able to get into de-occupied territories and see those detention centers, devastated villages talk to the villages from where people were kidnapped.
00:34:20.010 --> 00:34:22.416
But it's the story of 2022.
00:34:22.416 --> 00:34:26.512
And people were very willing to speak about what's going in the occup.
00:34:26.512 --> 00:34:30.621
The longer occupation lasts, there are more atrocities happening.
00:34:31.322 --> 00:34:45.739
But it's harder for the people to speak because they feel it's more dangerous if in 2022, 2023, they were thinking like I'll tell that story because, like, in a couple of months, the ukrainian army, would you know, regain access to this territory and my relatives would be freed.
00:34:45.739 --> 00:34:51.603
There were people thinking, hmm, what if they will stay in the occupation for another year?
00:34:51.603 --> 00:34:54.057
Maybe I don't need to tell that story.
00:34:54.057 --> 00:34:59.282
And also, ukraine country to a lot of other countries at war have the capable law enforcement.
00:34:59.282 --> 00:35:04.222
So we always try to talk to the people who are not covered by the law enforcement.
00:35:04.222 --> 00:35:05.795
We try not to duplicate work.
00:35:05.795 --> 00:35:17.786
So today, the person from the occupation would probably find it more trustworthy to talk to a journalist and more safe, rather than to a Ukrainian prosecutor.
00:35:17.929 --> 00:35:23.739
You talked about sort of retooling your skills, but are all the researchers journalists In our case?
00:35:24.481 --> 00:35:29.699
all the researchers are journalists and filmmakers, but documentary filmmakers, which I believe is almost the journalist.
00:35:29.699 --> 00:35:44.836
Right Among us there is a national journalist who did work in human rights, or they were the local reporters, which is also very special because if you're a local reporter, you connect it on a different level.
00:35:44.836 --> 00:35:54.518
So I do think that we also have a bit of the network of the people with this, you know, like connection to their own areas, which makes it also very unique.
00:35:54.518 --> 00:36:03.677
That's why I really strongly believe in the Reckoning Project, this type of thinking that in the end it's not like international human rights organization.
00:36:03.677 --> 00:36:05.342
We're in touch with these people.
00:36:08.210 --> 00:36:09.755
We know who they are and there is a network to pass information.
00:36:09.755 --> 00:36:15.637
Has the Reckoning Project begun the process of working either with Ukrainian law enforcement or with international aid?
00:36:15.637 --> 00:36:22.001
You know, maybe a United Nations agency to find out of what you are gathering is potentially of use.
00:36:22.329 --> 00:36:24.137
Indeed In Ukrainian criminal code.
00:36:24.137 --> 00:36:27.577
You cannot use somebody else's testimony.
00:36:27.577 --> 00:36:32.574
The prosecutor should interview the person himself or herself.
00:36:32.574 --> 00:36:39.112
However, what we did and it took us some time to develop kind of this capacity we pass them.
00:36:39.112 --> 00:36:43.603
What we have in kind of format because everything is analyzed, shortened.
00:36:43.603 --> 00:36:47.896
What we have in kind of format because everything is analyzed shortened, because you cannot give to prosecutor three hour long tape.
00:36:47.896 --> 00:36:50.159
What we give is like the short abstract.
00:36:50.159 --> 00:36:51.222
Do we have that?
00:36:51.222 --> 00:36:52.512
Is it important story?
00:36:52.512 --> 00:36:53.474
Are we missing something?
00:36:53.474 --> 00:37:05.052
Should we interview this person and even read what is in this, you know, like abstract and what is in this summary and say like, oh, actually this person have seen something which we are missing.
00:37:05.052 --> 00:37:06.617
So that's what we're doing.
00:37:06.617 --> 00:37:09.047
We are supplementing their work.
00:37:09.068 --> 00:37:15.914
You're like almost pre-interviewing, yeah, and perhaps thinking of different questions, because you weren't coming from a law enforcement background.
00:37:15.914 --> 00:37:17.518
You're coming from journalism background.
00:37:17.559 --> 00:37:23.541
Perhaps you had a question they hadn't considered so we provide that now up to three years.
00:37:23.541 --> 00:37:29.259
I know that Ukrainian law enforcement it's the way how most of the crimes would be investigated.
00:37:29.259 --> 00:37:31.710
It's not some court in the Hague or something.
00:37:31.911 --> 00:37:36.340
Have you looked at the Hague so how it works?
00:37:36.340 --> 00:37:38.610
I mean, have you talked to them to see?
00:37:38.610 --> 00:37:43.123
Would this be evidence that would be usable in that context?
00:37:43.384 --> 00:37:45.449
So, the lawyers of the Reckoning Project.
00:37:45.449 --> 00:37:49.177
Strategy is also to use every possible venue.
00:37:49.177 --> 00:37:55.695
So they are regularly preparing the submissions to most of the UN bodies.
00:37:55.695 --> 00:38:00.351
You know various commission of inquiries, torture, human rights commission on elderly.
00:38:00.351 --> 00:38:01.414
You know this type of thing.
00:38:01.414 --> 00:38:02.416
So that's working.
00:38:02.416 --> 00:38:11.173
There is a particular rapporteur on the you know the Russian war, so we are ready to give some of the testimonies you know on.
00:38:11.173 --> 00:38:14.740
You know, like on demand In case of ICC.
00:38:14.740 --> 00:38:15.903
It's interesting.
00:38:15.903 --> 00:38:22.760
First of all, for ICC it's very important to preserve their neutrality.
00:38:23.221 --> 00:38:35.802
So the reckoning project did go to the ICC, the ICC for the sake of credibility, doesn't openly speak about how it cooperates with the organizations.
00:38:35.802 --> 00:38:38.940
It takes a lot from everybody, but they wouldn't admit that.
00:38:38.940 --> 00:38:40.936
So everybody cooperates with ICC.
00:38:40.936 --> 00:38:47.081
They take everybody's data, but there is nothing like the cooperation of the ICC with independent organizations.
00:38:47.081 --> 00:38:51.541
And I should also say a lot of these stories are not really public.
00:38:51.541 --> 00:38:57.655
The judges, actually, and the investigators don't want to work with a story which is too public if you're speaking about the individual story.
00:38:57.655 --> 00:39:03.802
So there is a bit of a tension between the legal work and the journalistic work.
00:39:03.802 --> 00:39:07.400
So therefore we are a bit protective about our survivors.
00:39:07.400 --> 00:39:19.501
Yet if they want to speak, they're right, if they think it's the only way to do that, if they really want to seek the justice for some, some have this courage, some have this strength to speak.
00:39:19.501 --> 00:39:21.715
They still can fight their case.
00:39:21.715 --> 00:39:23.280
But we need to warn them.
00:39:23.280 --> 00:39:25.356
We, it's our duty to warn them.
00:39:25.356 --> 00:39:28.476
And some people speak, you know, choose to be public.
00:39:28.476 --> 00:39:31.692
Sometimes it's really look, it's all about the case.
00:39:31.692 --> 00:39:37.672
So, for instance, we want Vladimir Putin to be charged for the deportation of the Ukrainian children.
00:39:37.672 --> 00:39:41.041
Okay, maybe in that particular investigation there would be different children.
00:39:41.041 --> 00:39:44.418
The main is for him to be charged and you do it both ways.
00:39:44.619 --> 00:39:53.422
Some people are very pivotal for creating awareness, for making the public case, because without the public case maybe there won't be investigation.
00:39:54.010 --> 00:40:25.896
The first case opened by ICC against the Russian president, vladimir Putin, on the case of the deportation we know that we broke the story about the deportation and the people who we discovered are kind of the face of the story of the deportation In autumn 2022, we found, you know like we published the first, like bigger article about the deportation of three Ukrainian children and attempt to adopt them in Russia Became quite a famous story.
00:40:26.250 --> 00:40:35.081
So that particular story of the family of Mezhevi, which is written also at the Kennedy Fair, they are like a showcase for that ICC investigation.
00:40:35.081 --> 00:40:41.679
We would be concerned that people who are interviewed too many times by the media might be dropped as witnesses by the ICC.
00:40:41.679 --> 00:41:15.556
But you know, like breaking this case as a case, you know bringing attention to the issue of the deportation of the children, so partially we can say like we did participate in shaping that arrest warrant, it's definitely like we feel that there is a credit of our work in this particular investigation and the TRP organization run by Janine Giovanni has a separate project on interviewing the parents and the guardians about researching the indoctrination which is happening in the occupied territories.
00:41:15.556 --> 00:41:24.402
So there is a specific role of the TRP organization in documenting this story of the deportation of the children.
00:41:24.402 --> 00:41:35.282
Well, in Ukraine and everywhere, they today say that like, unless there is immediate attention, unless people care, there are less chances to open the case.
00:41:35.282 --> 00:41:37.978
So you know, it's kind of a duality.
00:41:38.329 --> 00:41:48.583
So there is a duality between those that are maybe more public-faced survivors, but perhaps the actual case will be brought on On somebody else somebody else that the general public has never read about.
00:41:48.911 --> 00:41:49.934
What also is done.
00:41:49.934 --> 00:42:08.378
A year ago it was the initiative of the Reckoning Project lawyers we initiated the criminal complaint to the Federal Court of Argentina, using the universal jurisdiction, traveling with a Ukrainian man who survived tortures and electrocution in occupied part of Ukraine.
00:42:08.378 --> 00:42:09.976
The case is still there.
00:42:09.976 --> 00:42:15.480
It's up to the Argentinian judge to consider whether they would open the case.
00:42:15.480 --> 00:42:23.661
What was for us absolutely important To show also, it's a story of one man and we cannot justify tortures even of one man.
00:42:23.849 --> 00:42:24.956
And it's not about the politics, it's not about global South, it's not about of one man and we cannot justify tortures even of one man.
00:42:24.956 --> 00:42:27.755
And it's not about the politics, it's not about global south, it's not about east or west.
00:42:27.755 --> 00:42:29.414
People shouldn't be tortured.
00:42:29.414 --> 00:42:41.117
Because Argentina has this tradition of investigating the crimes connected to the illegal detentions and tortures, including electrocution, because of the dirty wars of the 80s.
00:42:41.117 --> 00:42:45.182
So that's why it was Argentina, of the dirty wars of the 80s.
00:42:45.182 --> 00:42:52.056
So that's why it was Argentina, and again, the Nazist justification was indeed that we want to show that it's not about the West, it's not about Europe, that this case is universal.
00:42:52.409 --> 00:42:54.438
And this was through the Reckoning Project.
00:42:54.438 --> 00:42:57.324
It was your Reckoning Project lawyers who came up with this strategy.
00:42:57.344 --> 00:43:20.152
Yeah, there were a couple of us there were me, our survivor and our Argentinian lawyers the whole idea of the universal jurisdiction that such crimes as the crimes against humanity and the war crimes they are so gross that some of the countries have the legislation that they would prosecute those crimes, disregarding where they have happened.
00:43:20.653 --> 00:43:30.942
Now are all of these survivors civilians, or do you also interview POWs about their time and potential torture during their time as POWs?
00:43:31.289 --> 00:43:33.717
In our case, we work mainly with civilians.
00:43:33.717 --> 00:43:38.672
We had these discussions talking to the Ukrainian prisoners of war.
00:43:38.672 --> 00:43:41.516
Absolute majority of them were brutally tortured.
00:43:41.516 --> 00:43:46.284
I do think that it's also very important to investigate the crimes of grains prisoners of war.
00:43:46.284 --> 00:43:56.960
The tragic part of that story is that there is always this kind of concern that if you speak too much about that, they would stop releasing them.
00:43:57.871 --> 00:44:01.858
Ah, okay, no, there was just a large swap recently.
00:44:01.858 --> 00:44:02.659
That makes sense.
00:44:02.659 --> 00:44:04.976
It was a very special swap.
00:44:05.329 --> 00:44:13.264
What makes this swap very special is that Russia actually didn't give much of the prisoners of war.
00:44:13.264 --> 00:44:17.375
What they did, they returned a lot of inmates.
00:44:17.375 --> 00:44:26.349
You know, like the people who were in usual prisons for criminal offense in the occupied territories were in usual prisons for criminal offense in the occupied territories.
00:44:26.349 --> 00:44:28.869
They can just, you know, like grab thousands of the Ukrainians under their command and give them.
00:44:28.869 --> 00:44:30.335
Of course we're happy to have them.
00:44:30.335 --> 00:44:43.079
What you really think about very well, thought prisoners exchange when you really need to save the life of the journalist and or some kind of Ukrainian military or some political activists.
00:44:43.079 --> 00:44:51.938
That's what they are doing Using the people as the bargaining chip, and just like taking these poor inmates charged for the criminal offense somewhere in the occupation.
00:44:51.938 --> 00:44:54.336
And then you're like who are these people?
00:44:54.336 --> 00:44:58.677
They return Okay, that lets them free, but you know it's a bit different thing.
00:44:58.909 --> 00:45:01.800
Well, in fact hostages are a renewable resource.
00:45:01.800 --> 00:45:07.862
As long as they occupy the territory, they can take more hostages all too easily.
00:45:07.862 --> 00:45:15.222
So but of course, with the POWs obviously the military don't want to jeopardize.
00:45:15.222 --> 00:45:18.612
I'm talking about real POW for POW exchanges, that's true.
00:45:18.632 --> 00:45:19.092
but you know?
00:45:19.092 --> 00:45:20.257
That's the whole point.
00:45:20.257 --> 00:45:31.501
If you form a prisoner, a military, you have the right to tell what you want, and there is no Ukrainian state to tell the person not to do that.
00:45:31.829 --> 00:45:37.739
If they're a former military, if they're still in uniform, if they remain in uniform In Ukraine, people don't care, they will still speak.
00:45:38.210 --> 00:45:41.369
The problem that it is the Russians, then, are very, very negative.
00:45:41.369 --> 00:45:44.918
They're saying we're giving you these people, but they stop speaking.
00:45:44.918 --> 00:45:46.342
But they start speaking.
00:45:46.342 --> 00:45:49.760
Ukrainian state cannot forbid people to speak.
00:45:49.760 --> 00:45:56.384
You know, like it's actually the clash of the mindset, which is also very paradoxically tragic during this war.
00:45:57.010 --> 00:45:59.880
That is probably the greatest difference between Russia and Ukraine.
00:45:59.880 --> 00:46:01.829
It's not the language or the accent.
00:46:01.829 --> 00:46:06.614
If someone does speak Russian with a Ukrainian accent, it's actually the mindset.
00:46:07.717 --> 00:46:08.298
Absolutely.
00:46:08.298 --> 00:46:12.414
What I also understood that this clash creates.
00:46:12.414 --> 00:46:25.577
It's kind of a very violent situation in which you imagine you're a Ukrainian, you're probably 25 or 30, lady or gentleman worked in a farm, born, let's say, end of the Soviet Union, early independence.
00:46:25.577 --> 00:46:28.460
You have no idea why you should become the part of Russia.
00:46:28.460 --> 00:46:30.297
You speak the language you speak, it's your town.
00:46:30.297 --> 00:46:47.135
What is also strange that the Russians also couldn't understand that it's not President Zelensky, given the order from the farmer in some kind of village to behave as he behaves, to be loyal to Ukrainian land, to have only opinion about what religions he wants.
00:46:47.135 --> 00:46:49.318
You know he has, what views he has.
00:46:49.318 --> 00:46:51.811
There is no such a line in Ukraine.
00:46:51.811 --> 00:46:56.181
It's an individual and they are trying to kind of break their spirits.
00:46:56.181 --> 00:47:00.318
They're like tell us, give us a secret, who has ordered you to do this?
00:47:00.318 --> 00:47:01.599
And you know nobody.
00:47:01.599 --> 00:47:09.760
So for them it's also what we understood from these interviews of the survivors is that they also don't understand what these Russians want from them.
00:47:10.170 --> 00:47:14.757
You know, like because they talk about the russification, the changes in the education, of course.
00:47:15.550 --> 00:47:34.478
That's also very tragic with this occupation, that in Crimea and in the eastern Ukraine and I wrote quite a big piece for the foreign affairs about those, like experience of the occupation for the last 12 years it's like as if the toolkit has been developed on how to occupy fast.
00:47:34.478 --> 00:47:55.389
It took them some years to understand how you change the healthcare system, how you provide passports, how you create an education in how you, you know, like create an education in which Ukraine doesn't exist, in which I don't know, like there is this great Russian empire, but what happened that in the newly occupied territories after 2022, they have already the tool.
00:47:55.389 --> 00:48:00.001
They already know how to indoctrinate kids, they already know how to create the legislation.
00:48:00.001 --> 00:48:12.757
So, for instance, like now, you would have the situation in which you know, if you don't take the Russian passport, for instance, you probably won't be able to call an ambulance and things like that.
00:48:12.757 --> 00:48:21.518
That's why, for Ukrainians, what we should also say very much occupation is way more scarier than the war, the life under the.
00:48:21.518 --> 00:48:23.342
You know what we call the war.
00:48:23.342 --> 00:48:24.264
It's one thing.
00:48:24.264 --> 00:48:27.835
I think we need a bit to be very clear with the vocabulary.
00:48:28.456 --> 00:48:41.237
What we have in Ukraine, it's foreign invasion and, of course, president Trump may say stop the war, but if you understand that it's invasion, occupation is not peace, occupation is a war.
00:48:41.237 --> 00:48:43.461
Occupation is a part of the war.
00:48:43.461 --> 00:48:53.389
So what ukrainians are now forced to agree, it's a part of the country, stop to defend itself from the invasion and agree for the occupation.
00:48:53.389 --> 00:48:57.902
In both cases, it's don't stop the war, it do not stop suffering.
00:48:57.902 --> 00:49:16.219
Of course, you can successfully defend yourself this is our experience of the three years If you fight back, if you have the army, if you have, like it happened, ukrainian army freed Kiev region, kharkiv region, kherson region and you can live there, you can breathe there, you can go to school.
00:49:17.510 --> 00:49:20.981
The bomb can still fall, but the chances of you surviving is there.
00:49:20.981 --> 00:49:26.898
If the Ukrainian army defend the city, if you live under the occupation, there are very little chances.
00:49:26.898 --> 00:49:28.121
What will happen to you?
00:49:28.121 --> 00:49:30.358
You can be detained, you can be in prison.
00:49:30.358 --> 00:49:45.184
So, in a way, I think at this moment, when there is this kind of talks everywhere about negotiations, I do think it's very important to use this vocabulary of how we see these people, how we see the solutions.
00:49:45.184 --> 00:49:46.956
Is occupation the peace?
00:49:46.956 --> 00:49:49.012
Can you just stop?
00:49:49.012 --> 00:49:51.994
Defend itself from the invasion, and that would end the war.
00:49:51.994 --> 00:49:53.318
That's interesting.
00:49:55.012 --> 00:50:01.150
I should also make it clear to listeners you're obviously independent of the United Nations and its agencies and bodies.
00:50:01.150 --> 00:50:06.956
You're also independent of the Ukrainian government military, the Zelensky administration.
00:50:06.956 --> 00:50:07.699
Is that right?
00:50:07.739 --> 00:50:08.099
Sure.
00:50:08.730 --> 00:50:17.101
Your most recent article for the Atlantic was on drones, and you did go in bed and meet with drone operators, not certain how close you were to the front line there.
00:50:17.101 --> 00:50:19.467
Sure, were they at all reflective?
00:50:19.467 --> 00:50:25.500
I mean, are they aware that they are really in the process of inventing a new way of war fighting?
00:50:26.085 --> 00:50:39.280
Yes, at this stage, Ukrainian military are aware that they're inventing something totally new, because even I've been embedded with three various brigades in the different parts of the front line.
00:50:39.280 --> 00:51:05.552
Different parts of the front line, uh, the one very kind of high tech, the one which was kind of a legendary traditional mechanic infantry brigade, and quite a like a smaller one which was created after 2022 from the people from the territorial defense very different, and almost everybody to whom I talked kind of reconfirmed that the way they fight the war is very different from how they used to do a year ago.
00:51:06.514 --> 00:51:07.396
A year ago.
00:51:07.396 --> 00:51:10.927
It has changed that much the drone technology and tactics.
00:51:11.266 --> 00:51:23.065
Absolutely, because before the drones were additional supplementary to something you know they help to target, they help to do that, but now the drones are mainly used instead of the artillery.
00:51:23.065 --> 00:51:26.559
So the whole artillery is mainly, you know, the whole.
00:51:26.579 --> 00:51:27.903
I mean, is that a capacity issue?
00:51:27.903 --> 00:51:29.489
They don't have enough artillery.
00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:33.364
There was no enough artillery, so it became more precise and different.
00:51:33.364 --> 00:51:42.333
And what also for me was very it's probably very important also for your audience to tell, because you know, like the drone warfare was not new.
00:51:42.333 --> 00:51:45.371
You know there is Obama doctrine, there was drones in Pakistan.
00:51:45.371 --> 00:51:46.670
You know it's totally not new.
00:51:46.670 --> 00:51:54.485
But what for me was important also to say that I read myself years ago this article when there was like a guy in Nevada targeting somebody in Afghanistan.
00:51:54.706 --> 00:51:55.949
Right, I've read that everywhere.
00:51:55.949 --> 00:51:57.335
Everybody's read that.
00:51:57.335 --> 00:51:59.449
But everyone who's interested in drones has read that article.
00:51:59.449 --> 00:52:03.338
Yeah, everybody read that article, you know which is very different.
00:52:03.945 --> 00:52:05.911
It's a very frontline experience.
00:52:05.911 --> 00:52:11.465
You're a few kilometers, you are in a dangerous position, just you know, in the frontline.
00:52:11.646 --> 00:52:16.123
So there's not that well philosophical issue of the disconnect, of being at a harm's way.
00:52:16.123 --> 00:52:18.090
There is no disconnect, you are at harm's way.
00:52:18.385 --> 00:52:33.753
You're in a dangerous position, you can be killed at any given moment and you operating, you know like, from the field, from the foxhole, from the dugout has the ukrainian military started evolving their doctrine for drone technology, or they're making up on the fly?
00:52:34.335 --> 00:52:37.570
uh, there is, you know, but the drug twin is more or less the same.
00:52:37.570 --> 00:52:42.951
The doctrine is what is very tricky about the this warfare, the nato doctrine, the usual.
00:52:42.951 --> 00:52:52.155
What I understand as a journalist is that you need to control the sky so you cannot just have this very gruesome infantry war.
00:52:52.155 --> 00:52:54.172
I think that that's how Donald Trump sees it.
00:52:54.172 --> 00:53:00.333
You know, when the infantry is fighting infantry, it's very devastating and that's what the Ukrainians are really trying to say.
00:53:00.704 --> 00:53:01.186
So far.
00:53:01.186 --> 00:53:02.452
We had to fight.
00:53:02.452 --> 00:53:11.492
We had to fight a lot, this kind of old-fashioned infantry war which none of the NATO countries would ever do, because you risk the life of your own people.
00:53:11.492 --> 00:53:24.614
What you need to do is to control the sky and do not allow the enemy come so close to your front, to your line, so you don't need to risk the life of your infantry.
00:53:24.614 --> 00:53:32.916
You cut them out further and the strike deep, strike further into the Russian command and control center can stop that.
00:53:32.916 --> 00:53:43.454
That's why Ukraine argued so long that allow us to use the strikes in depth, so Russian command and control centers would be destroyed.
00:53:43.454 --> 00:53:52.914
In the end, it's destroyed less of the russian soldiers, to be honest, less of the human rights from the russians, but it destroys less of the lives of the ukrainians.
00:53:52.914 --> 00:53:54.237
You just don't let them go.
00:53:54.237 --> 00:53:58.920
It's in fact you can do this and ukraine has the manpower issue.
00:53:58.981 --> 00:54:01.052
Obviously it's a smaller country, so you need to.
00:54:01.052 --> 00:54:11.737
Besides for the humanistic reasons you want to preserve your lives, for practical reasons you need to preserve yes, because it's not about the resources, it's about capabilities, and these are different things.
00:54:12.246 --> 00:54:16.077
Resource wise, ukraine is smaller than russia.
00:54:16.077 --> 00:54:17.541
It has lesser resources.
00:54:17.541 --> 00:54:21.331
In terms of capabilities, capabilities are not always equal.
00:54:21.331 --> 00:54:24.987
You, you can have better capabilities, you can be efficient with.
00:54:24.987 --> 00:54:29.297
You know like in the way how you work with your resources.
00:54:29.297 --> 00:54:32.731
So, in this regard, what drones help?
00:54:32.731 --> 00:54:42.945
It's to deny Russian superiority on air, at least to some extent, something which we were not getting from quite a lot of our Western allies.
00:54:42.945 --> 00:54:46.976
So Ukraine needed to develop its own capability at least.
00:54:47.405 --> 00:54:50.335
Yes, to control the sky or at least have parity.
00:54:50.485 --> 00:54:51.570
I mean I control the sky.
00:54:52.085 --> 00:55:06.409
I don't know if that's feasible to join so meaning like yes, you probably cannot like control the skies over the Russian controlled territory, but you deny them the opportunity to control the skies over the russian controlled territory, but you deny them the opportunity to control the skies about you.
00:55:06.409 --> 00:55:13.148
So you have this exactly kind of parody which in the end save the lives of your own soldiers.
00:55:13.148 --> 00:55:16.175
So, yes, kind of doctrine changed.
00:55:16.175 --> 00:55:25.152
I do believe that what I understand from the talking to the military the doctrine is changed, but by the different tool and I do think it's even.
00:55:25.152 --> 00:55:33.112
I think what is also fascinating was the spider web operation, which also kind of shows very well that Russia is not invincible.
00:55:33.112 --> 00:55:36.614
But again, technology is not expensive.
00:55:36.614 --> 00:55:43.096
In fact, what was fascinating in this operation is not that Ukraine invented some kind of incredible drones.
00:55:43.096 --> 00:55:50.947
You know, the ballistic missiles to target Russia that far in Siberia cost millions and these drones are cheap.
00:55:50.947 --> 00:55:57.199
But you needed to have a planning, a system operation 15 months reportedly.
00:55:57.199 --> 00:56:04.586
Yes, it's about message, but the destruction of the particular bombers and the fighter jets especially.
00:56:04.586 --> 00:56:11.572
Clearly, knowing that the Russian resources are also not infinite, you know like they have a particular number of these jets.
00:56:11.572 --> 00:56:16.956
Those jets were produced during the Soviet times, meaning they won't produce them very fast.
00:56:16.956 --> 00:56:20.873
You know where we made a huge mistake.
00:56:21.666 --> 00:56:31.293
I think that the Ukrainians also, for some time, not like underestimated the russian army because, also, I should say, like they're fighting, they are redeveloping itself, they're learning about the drones.
00:56:31.293 --> 00:56:32.695
I also don't like they're learning.
00:56:32.695 --> 00:56:34.289
They have the scale, they're developing.
00:56:34.289 --> 00:56:42.112
They bought the technology from, you know, iran to develop the shahid drones which are, you know, terrorizingizing Ukrainian cities.
00:56:42.112 --> 00:56:45.018
They do have the North Korean troops.
00:56:45.018 --> 00:56:48.385
They have the supply of the artillery shells from North Korea.
00:56:48.385 --> 00:56:51.494
They're using North Korean ballistic missiles.
00:56:51.494 --> 00:56:52.427
So there is a lot.
00:56:52.427 --> 00:56:54.295
How also the Russian army is evolving.
00:56:54.295 --> 00:56:57.295
They are capable to spend, you know, a huge budget.
00:56:57.764 --> 00:57:14.452
But what we didn't expect from, I think, like in early 2022, when the full invasion happened, kind of from the films and from the stereotypes, you thought like, oh, there is a Russian army, the Ukrainian army, probably the Russian army is a bit more organized, but they're drinking more, you know, like something like that on the human level.
00:57:14.452 --> 00:57:16.579
But you know what we missed?
00:57:16.579 --> 00:57:26.059
That during the war in Chechnya, during the war in Syria, this army was using the war crimes as a way to wage the war.
00:57:26.059 --> 00:57:37.976
It's a very brutal army which uses this kind of chaos and impunity, which has a system of tortures which has a system you know, like with the Reckoning Project, with our lawyers, with what we do.
00:57:37.976 --> 00:57:39.623
We also understand the patterns.
00:57:39.623 --> 00:57:50.255
The people tortured by the Russianussian soldiers in the north, in the south, in the east, in 2022, in 23, 2024 and today are tortured in a similar way.
00:57:51.137 --> 00:57:54.048
The towns are destroyed and erased and wiped out.
00:57:54.048 --> 00:57:59.485
You know, in the very similar way the russians would target the hospital.
00:57:59.485 --> 00:58:08.797
Hospital is protected because they know that then the people would leave the town because they are not capable to occupy the towns in the, let's say, usual way.
00:58:08.797 --> 00:58:18.059
What they can do is spend months to obliterate Bakhmut, so there is no city.
00:58:18.059 --> 00:58:19.989
And then the Ukrainian.
00:58:19.989 --> 00:58:21.954
What is the Russian strategy of waging this war?
00:58:21.954 --> 00:58:23.925
And they are moving very slow.
00:58:23.925 --> 00:58:26.972
They're not really capable to occupy a big town.
00:58:26.972 --> 00:58:36.617
What they can do is to destroy it to extent that there is no point for the Ukrainian army to hold into the piece of land.
00:58:36.617 --> 00:58:37.905
You know where.
00:58:37.905 --> 00:58:38.949
You can't even hide.
00:58:39.068 --> 00:58:46.494
Well, Mariupol would be the other classic example, mariupol, is a bit different in this regard because at the early stage of the war it was very abrupt.
00:58:46.494 --> 00:58:57.717
They were able to occupy Mariupol within the first months of the war but, if we would remember, since summer 2022, they were not capable to occupy any bigger town, keeping it intact.
00:58:57.717 --> 00:59:02.489
What they were able later to fight for five months for Bahmut destroy Bahmut.
00:59:02.489 --> 00:59:05.231
Fight for five months, I know Avdiivka destroy it.
00:59:05.231 --> 00:59:10.014
So they literally are capable to occupy it, destroy it.
00:59:10.014 --> 00:59:11.375
Land and claim it.
00:59:11.795 --> 00:59:14.237
It's the land that they want, not the city.
00:59:14.938 --> 00:59:20.581
Sometimes they claim the victory and then you understand that it was a village of like three people.
00:59:20.581 --> 00:59:23.246
What does they want?
00:59:23.246 --> 00:59:24.088
To kind of create this image.
00:59:24.108 --> 00:59:30.811
they're winning, so but that's what I'm saying, that do you think it's partly a pr war for for the oval office and maybe other?
00:59:31.032 --> 00:59:31.934
the russians.
00:59:31.934 --> 00:59:41.369
The russians try to persuade the world that they are winning this war, but I find this idea is that just because they're big, they're invincible quite a primitive one.
00:59:41.550 --> 00:59:47.793
But um, but there's the sledgehammer approach and that we saw really from Progozhin.
00:59:47.793 --> 00:59:48.094
Yeah.
00:59:48.646 --> 00:59:52.670
So, of course, for Ukraine it's harder to fight its war because we value our soldiers.
00:59:52.670 --> 00:59:57.791
You know, and let me be critical, I won't say every commander.
00:59:57.791 --> 01:00:03.072
I probably think that there would be some commander who cares less and who is, you know, risking too much.
01:00:03.072 --> 01:00:09.155
So it's not like, oh, every single Ukrainian commander is kind of cherishing the life of every single.
01:00:09.155 --> 01:00:11.760
You know, I don't want to romanticize it, there are problems.
01:00:11.760 --> 01:00:21.139
The Ukrainian army is a huge, you know, operation of a lot of people who are newly trained, who came to service just after 2022.
01:00:21.139 --> 01:00:23.172
You know what is fascinating with the Ukrainian army?
01:00:23.172 --> 01:00:27.097
Ukraine has 70,000 soldiers.
01:00:28.846 --> 01:00:29.708
Okay, 70,000.
01:00:29.789 --> 01:00:30.873
Before 2014.
01:00:30.873 --> 01:00:36.496
Then, before 2022, we developed an army of 300,000.
01:00:36.496 --> 01:00:37.619
300,000.
01:00:37.619 --> 01:00:39.090
Now it's almost 2 million.
01:00:39.090 --> 01:00:39.853
Who are these people?
01:00:39.853 --> 01:00:51.153
Usual people, normal people, my friends, my colleagues, your barista, your janitor, your professor, CEO, wherever you know all kind of usual people they need to train.
01:00:51.153 --> 01:01:00.181
It's an army of civilians which have to force to live in a very different mindset of like, obeying, having the military rules.
01:01:01.146 --> 01:01:04.248
Does every family have Almost every.
01:01:04.367 --> 01:01:12.371
Ukrainian family has somebody who is serving almost and definitely a colleague, a friend or whatever, but it's like a usual people.
01:01:12.371 --> 01:01:15.094
So again, like it's quite an army.
01:01:15.094 --> 01:01:19.664
Somebody is less trained, somebody is too old, somebody is not physically capable.
01:01:19.664 --> 01:01:31.467
You know, sometimes you really do stupid things, sometimes you maybe some brigades are stronger, some are lesser, some do, you know, not very efficient way of rationing the equipment.
01:01:31.467 --> 01:01:38.847
So I won't romanticize ukrainian army, but still, what is the main task for the ukrainian soldier?
01:01:38.887 --> 01:01:46.798
What is ukrainian soldier is, for instance, in case of becoming a prisoner of war, save your life.
01:01:46.798 --> 01:01:49.067
Tell any crap you know, like I don't know.
01:01:49.067 --> 01:01:52.175
Tell you have a loyalty to Putin wherever.
01:01:52.175 --> 01:01:53.016
Save your life.
01:01:53.016 --> 01:01:59.813
What the Russian soldier said like don't give up, they will shoot the traitor, they will shoot and destroy their own people.
01:01:59.813 --> 01:02:01.784
You know that is a difference.
01:02:01.784 --> 01:02:08.057
But also the idea of the cannon fodder, just throwing people what term is existing?
01:02:08.057 --> 01:02:09.862
In russian it's called.
01:02:09.862 --> 01:02:12.108
I even ever saw it, it's so common.
01:02:12.108 --> 01:02:15.355
It's like in in our language is like the usual phrase.
01:02:15.355 --> 01:02:30.235
It's called like the reconnaissance during the fight, which means you throw the people like five people, for clearly they would be shelled for one reason that then the Ukrainians would identify.
01:02:30.235 --> 01:02:34.833
You can identify from where Ukrainians are shelling You're literally using them as a human trap.
01:02:35.304 --> 01:02:37.233
Right, you're counting the guns with their bodies.
01:02:37.445 --> 01:02:44.231
You're counting their guns with their bodies and it's like, you know, like that's the most common things and they are doing it constantly.
01:02:44.231 --> 01:02:55.255
So it's really a very inhumane, but also the the odd part of it that now in the russian army they have the huge incentives to people fight.
01:02:55.255 --> 01:03:02.197
So it's really like kind of a bit of mercenary army, because a lot of people in russia have mortgages that their way.
01:03:02.197 --> 01:03:07.639
It's not like they're forced to go, they make this choice because then probably they would pay the mortgage.
01:03:07.639 --> 01:03:09.346
You know, it would bring some money.
01:03:09.827 --> 01:03:32.753
And I find it also a bit like an immoral kind of like kind of whole, immorally kind of strange idea when out of your citizens you're creating this kind of army of mercenaries from your own citizens, saying like okay, earning money for a mortgage, but go to the foreign country and kill people in any ways, it's like, but they're using this practice which is really inhumane, which is hard to fight.
01:03:32.753 --> 01:03:33.936
But the answer is very clear.
01:03:33.936 --> 01:03:53.431
That's why, since they are ready to risk the life of their soldiers, probably you better, you know, like not let them be closed, because you won't fight the very same way so that's where the drones come in and why the ukraine army has become so creative with their use of drones yep you find your other way.
01:03:53.831 --> 01:03:58.007
Yeah, it took me some time also to rethink the whole idea of the war.
01:03:58.007 --> 01:04:14.097
Somebody who comes from the human rights Because in the end you clearly understand the experience of the Crimea occupation, the experience of the Donbass occupation say that there is no way you pacify somebody who is pointing gun at you and still telling I want to kill you.
01:04:14.097 --> 01:04:19.655
There is a level to how much you can tell a person with a gun don't kill me.
01:04:19.655 --> 01:04:20.927
You can beg, but it doesn't help.
01:04:20.927 --> 01:04:22.317
And sometimes as a human, even like if you're a human, don't kill me.
01:04:22.317 --> 01:04:22.961
You can beg, but it doesn't help.
01:04:22.961 --> 01:04:30.327
And sometimes as a human, even like if you're a humanist, even if you're a person who believe in reconciliation, in the negotiations.
01:04:30.327 --> 01:04:40.045
I was brought up, I was trained in the idea of the peace, negotiations, reconciliations, that there is always diplomatic way.
01:04:40.045 --> 01:04:50.572
No, no, we understand that sometimes, again, some of the malign forces, the only way is kind of your deterrence, the only way you don't need to kill.
01:04:50.572 --> 01:04:55.094
So, for instance, why I find the Operation Spiderweb successful.
01:04:55.094 --> 01:04:56.976
Civilians were not involved.
01:04:56.976 --> 01:05:00.498
Ukraine did something which you can speak about.
01:05:00.498 --> 01:05:04.219
This operation didn't harm Russian civilians.
01:05:04.219 --> 01:05:05.460
Everybody saw that.
01:05:05.460 --> 01:05:12.146
You know, like everybody kind of saw that the target was very clearly military target and the Russians would what Retaliate?
01:05:12.146 --> 01:05:15.672
With bombing a hospital, double strike against rescue workers.
01:05:15.672 --> 01:05:18.911
So I do think that there is a level.
01:05:18.911 --> 01:05:24.452
And still, you know, I'm not in favor of the war, but I think there is a way to stop the invasion.
01:05:25.184 --> 01:05:39.615
And unless Ukraine fight the war by the rules, trying to target Russian soldiers, trying to preserve civilians, you know, like not wasting human lives, but yes, you really understand that there is a just war.
01:05:39.615 --> 01:05:43.836
That's why the UN exists, that's why there are all these Geneva Conventions, there are these rules.
01:05:43.836 --> 01:05:48.817
For a normal human being to accept that there are rules of the war, it's like oh, it's war.
01:05:48.817 --> 01:05:52.413
No, there are rules of the war and I think that important for me.
01:05:52.413 --> 01:05:58.606
Ukraine is trying to play by the rules of this war, at least to some extent, which is possible, and Russia don't.
01:05:58.606 --> 01:06:07.135
If you really talk to military, to American military, they always would say that you know, from the military point of view, the way that Russia fights this war.
01:06:07.135 --> 01:06:10.880
It's not just immoral but it doesn't make sense.
01:06:10.880 --> 01:06:14.514
They really cause a lot of damage to civilians.
01:06:14.514 --> 01:06:15.525
It's like a bit like the terrorist kind of state.
01:06:16.364 --> 01:06:21.233
Now defending your country from invasion OK, already that's quite a lot.
01:06:21.233 --> 01:06:30.628
Is there a desire in Ukraine, though, to go beyond that and to make changes in Russia?
01:06:30.628 --> 01:06:30.967
We met a fighter.
01:06:30.967 --> 01:06:32.210
We interviewed a fighter earlier on our podcast.
01:06:32.210 --> 01:06:43.860
He's Canadian, but he's fighting with the Kalinowski Regiment of Belarusian volunteers, and he did say that many of them do dream of going back and changing their country after this conflict.
01:06:43.860 --> 01:06:49.264
Is there a sense that Russia needs to change for the situation to improve?
01:06:49.264 --> 01:06:51.693
Or is it just like look, we just want them to go away.
01:06:51.693 --> 01:06:55.905
They can do whatever they want in their corner of the world, as long as they leave us alone, I think?
01:06:56.206 --> 01:07:02.478
the latter, because of course, the democratic Russia would be at least our guarantee for more security.
01:07:02.478 --> 01:07:07.150
If Russia is not democratic, there is always the risk it remains like it is.
01:07:07.150 --> 01:07:11.635
Yet I think that for Ukraine it's not about like stopping Russia.
01:07:11.635 --> 01:07:20.838
Globally we are not capable, but for us it's very clear they shouldn't have the capability to fight in that way, with that weapon against.
01:07:22.346 --> 01:07:24.329
Oh, I think it's my turn I think it's my turn.
01:07:24.449 --> 01:07:28.056
on like air alert, it's still working.
01:07:28.077 --> 01:07:31.875
Oh my gosh, we are hearing an air alert from Kiev.
01:07:32.505 --> 01:07:36.375
Yes, I think, because on my one, phone, I switch it off Even though you're traveling.
01:07:36.375 --> 01:07:37.737
Oh my gosh, yes yes, yes.
01:07:38.186 --> 01:07:39.231
Well, that makes it real.
01:07:40.907 --> 01:07:41.228
Yeah, it is.
01:07:41.228 --> 01:07:42.570
There is an air alert.
01:07:42.570 --> 01:07:46.338
Alert because also it's already night in Ukraine, it's usually Right.
01:07:46.338 --> 01:07:47.338
So this is when it happens.
01:07:48.085 --> 01:07:59.432
But there's one more question that you did just remind me of, which is that I know that many Ukrainians were critical, while he was alive, of Navalny and even now, of some of the attention that Yulia Navalny gets.
01:07:59.432 --> 01:08:13.594
But it sounds like what you're saying is maybe the sentiment is not honestly opposed to the pro-democracy in Russia and obviously your husband is Russian and journalist, I should say, and journalist in exile obviously.
01:08:13.695 --> 01:08:16.868
Yes, but it's not to say that they're opposed to that.
01:08:16.868 --> 01:08:18.190
But just stay in your own lane.
01:08:18.190 --> 01:08:20.176
That's a separate problem.
01:08:20.176 --> 01:08:24.006
But the Ukrainians are only concerned now about preserving Ukraine.
01:08:24.648 --> 01:08:27.073
Yes, ukrainians are concerned about preserving Ukraine.
01:08:27.073 --> 01:08:39.578
I think that there is still kind of some, maybe disappointment I would use this term in terms of some of the, let's say, liberal Russians, mainly because, first of all, I feel very bad for Alexei Navalny being killed.
01:08:39.578 --> 01:08:41.229
It was a hard day for me.
01:08:41.229 --> 01:08:43.355
I knew people whose friend he was.
01:08:43.355 --> 01:09:05.609
Yet I do think that the Russian society outside of Russia is very automized and when I speak to a lot of Russian colleagues and some of the friends so many of them they are just like lost and they can't do much, and what they usually feel it's like we feel so pity and we always say it's not about us, you feel pity about us.
01:09:06.110 --> 01:09:07.766
Do something you know like.
01:09:07.766 --> 01:09:08.730
So this is the idea.
01:09:08.730 --> 01:09:09.970
Can you do something?
01:09:09.970 --> 01:09:14.225
It's a bit too long for you know it's a very hard interaction.
01:09:14.225 --> 01:09:15.329
It's for the third year.
01:09:16.104 --> 01:09:24.649
Meet your colleagues and friends and they start the discussion we can do nothing and I'm thinking are you in a better condition than uh, and worse condition?
01:09:24.649 --> 01:09:25.289
I understand it's difficult.
01:09:25.289 --> 01:09:27.555
You're in exile in New York, in Berlin.
01:09:27.555 --> 01:09:35.929
I live in Kiev, you know so for me to listen for an hour how difficult is their life in Berlin, in New York, and that they can do nothing.
01:09:35.929 --> 01:09:42.065
I will think like I could always also say I could do nothing, but we're doing something like.
01:09:42.065 --> 01:09:50.739
I think that there is also this difference that people are like as if they are withdrawn from their responsibility of serving kind of a bigger cause.
01:09:50.739 --> 01:09:59.796
People trying to preserve their families, you know jobs, trying to find their way outside, as if it has nothing to do with them.
01:09:59.796 --> 01:10:11.511
So I think that also for some of the activists which was kind of the criticism that some of the Russian activists they're still speaking about corruption inside Russia, but not like the war.
01:10:11.511 --> 01:10:14.894
But I think speaking about the corruption is quite too outdated.
01:10:14.894 --> 01:10:17.550
There is something else you can do.
01:10:17.550 --> 01:10:18.554
There is a bigger cause.
01:10:18.944 --> 01:10:24.127
Well, that was, of course, Navalny's cause and what eventually led to his end.
01:10:24.127 --> 01:10:26.292
But it's interesting.
01:10:26.313 --> 01:10:48.448
What you're saying is it's not that you don't support their anti-corruption cause in Russia, but you feel that they should pay more attention to what Russia is doing in Ukraine and perhaps elsewhere in their foreign policy and I do very much differentiate and that's what I'm trying, I know I'm very open because, like you know, having a Russian husband and like trying to say that, like I don't speak the Russian, would be strange and I guess two, three years.
01:10:48.470 --> 01:10:50.454
I should say that he's with MediaZona.
01:10:50.454 --> 01:10:51.077
I don't know.
01:10:51.077 --> 01:10:57.212
You've also met Pussy Riot, yeah yeah, so you know a lot of high-profile Russian dissidents.
01:10:57.231 --> 01:11:05.993
I know quite a lot of high profile Russian dissidents and I see like my person, so you know, sometimes I need to defend them in front of the Ukrainians saying like so.
01:11:05.993 --> 01:11:14.350
But I would always say I see the difference between the people who just feel pity and the people who think that they need to do something to help Ukraine to win this war.
01:11:14.350 --> 01:11:16.253
That is a big difference.
01:11:16.253 --> 01:11:21.833
By the way, I think that if people want to help Ukraine to win this war, of course they should.
01:11:21.833 --> 01:11:30.811
If the only thing is like looking at me as like the powerless victim and they can do nothing about that, okay it's maybe better than they support Putin.
01:11:30.811 --> 01:11:35.067
But you know like I cannot totally relate to that as a human being.
01:11:35.067 --> 01:11:41.028
But again, it's more disappointed, I feel like sad about the Russian society, that I don't see it as a society.
01:11:41.028 --> 01:11:42.354
I see a few individuals who try to do something I talked to.
01:11:42.354 --> 01:11:43.760
Sad about the Russian society that I don't see it as a society.
01:11:43.760 --> 01:11:44.864
I see a few individuals who try to do something.
01:11:45.465 --> 01:12:00.970
I talked to one of the colleagues who once tried to say that his attempt was at least to kind of gather Russian liberals, to create something like the list which would issue the open letter, just a very simple thing.
01:12:00.970 --> 01:12:12.296
That would be public people who would kind of condemn the Russian strikes against Ukraine on the regular basis and they didn't make this open letter and I said like, wow, if it's that difficult, okay, what can I expect?
01:12:12.296 --> 01:12:13.931
But I think it's up to them.
01:12:13.931 --> 01:12:15.664
I know it's difficult.
01:12:15.664 --> 01:12:35.113
I'm saying like I'm very grateful to the Ukrainian Armed Forces that I'm capable, a professional, be appreciated, not because of pity, but because of what I'm doing, because I still am able to be inside the country, speak to my audience, do my job.
01:12:35.635 --> 01:12:52.045
You would also interview me if I would be a Ukrainian exile reporter and sit in this room and I would tell you how difficult is the life in occupied Ukraine, because when people speaking about the end of this war, they kind of understand that what is offered to Ukraine is to give up and to be in exile.
01:12:52.045 --> 01:13:01.070
So I'm really glad that we are like seen, not not like kind of out of pity, but as somebody who is like doing something in a very difficult condition.
01:13:01.070 --> 01:13:12.293
Without claiming that the war in Ukraine is more important than any other war, I would make the argument that the war against Ukraine is important because it's about sovereignty.
01:13:12.293 --> 01:13:15.354
So there is a capable society inside of Ukraine.
01:13:15.354 --> 01:13:17.372
There is kind of democracy in Ukraine.
01:13:17.372 --> 01:13:20.094
There is a political will to support Ukraine.
01:13:21.145 --> 01:13:24.354
There is a legitimate will to support Ukraine.
01:13:24.756 --> 01:13:28.145
There is a legitimate framework to support Ukraine, to help Ukraine to defend its population.
01:13:28.145 --> 01:13:35.920
There is political will to wage and to undergo investigation, to search for accountability.
01:13:35.920 --> 01:13:45.070
So if we are not able to do anything, to do much in case of Ukraine, can we do anything else at all?
01:13:45.070 --> 01:13:51.697
And I do think that we can do it in Ukraine so we can make it in more difficult terrains.
01:13:51.697 --> 01:14:00.753
But then you can say like, oh, if you can't deal with Ukraine in the UN, how you can sort out all these complicated other issues?
01:14:00.753 --> 01:14:11.005
I'm saying that, like there is nothing extraordinary about Ukrainians, we are forced to do extraordinary things, which I respect a lot in my compatriots.
01:14:11.305 --> 01:14:13.975
So it's ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.
01:14:14.805 --> 01:14:22.077
We just happen to be in this survival mode and forces people to show their worst and their best.
01:14:22.077 --> 01:14:25.774
Somehow I saw the best.
01:14:27.104 --> 01:14:30.074
Natalia, thank you so much for joining us in the Delegates' Lounge.
01:14:30.485 --> 01:14:31.551
Thank you for having me.
01:14:36.106 --> 01:14:37.573
And that's it from the Delegates' Lounge.
01:14:37.573 --> 01:14:43.228
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01:14:43.228 --> 01:14:48.515
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01:14:48.515 --> 01:14:55.686
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01:15:13.791 --> 01:15:17.827
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01:15:22.735 --> 01:15:24.979
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