Very discreet Nobel Peace Prizes. In the city center of kyiv, you have to cross the small alleys, two aging wrought iron barriers and a maze of courtyards to come to the headquarters of the Center for Civil Liberties. On two floors, inside a small obsolete building, a real hive: the doors slam, the phones ring, about twenty volunteers run in all directions. Since the start of the Russian invasion, this association for the defense of human rights has been in a race against time. A race to document the war crimes committed by Vladimir Putin’s army.
Over 42,000 open war crimes cases
The Center for Civil Liberties has changed in size on February 24, 2022: the organization, created in 2007 to promote democracy inside Ukraine, becomes the spearhead of the Ukrainian associative world. Executions of civilians, torture, rape, kidnappings… A month after the start of the Russian invasion, the CCL launched, with two other Ukrainian associations, the initiative “A court for Putin”. Its volunteers list all the war crimes committed by the Russian army thanks to information in “open source” but also, and above all, by collecting testimonies from victims. In one year, the association has already opened more than 42,000 files related to war crimes in Ukraine… A titanic task, which earned the small team the Nobel Peace Prize last December.
“We go on the ground, to villages previously occupied by the Russian army, to list all the damage, the torture chambers, the burnt buildings, the schools, the libraries and the destroyed churches”, details Roman Nekoliak, lawyer at the shaved head and imposing build. Often, in the middle of his machine-gun speech, the young man stops and lowers his head in silence. “What we see of the liberated territories lets us imagine what is happening in the territories occupied at the moment by the Russian army, to which we do not have access, then continues Roman. Who knows how many people died, tortured or forcibly recruited into the Russian army and its militias?
Working on the war crimes committed by Putin’s soldiers means rubbing shoulders with horror on a daily basis. Even remotely, CCL volunteers must collect testimonies down to the smallest detail, in order to provide legal authorities, such as the International Criminal Court, with files of extreme precision, impossible to challenge in court. “I have seen the horrors of it and it is difficult to impress me, but even today, with what is happening in Ukraine, I am often in shock, admits Ukrainian lawyer Volodymyr Yavorskyy, veteran of the fight for human rights in Eastern Europe. I often compare our situation to that of doctors: we are facing terrible events, but we are doing what we can to act.”
In volunteers, burnout and psychological distress
A huge, exhausting task, especially for this team of about twenty volunteers, whom nothing prepared for the war on its territory. “This kind of work frequently causes burnouts, poses Roman, frantically clicking on his computer. People come, they work, but they have to stop because they are emotionally exhausted. This work consists of looking at many images of death, to listen to testimonies of people who have lost loved ones… If you are not ready, you can quickly be devastated yourself.” The association now works with a team of psychologists. “Those documenting war crimes, if they sleep poorly, if they show signs of self-harm or burnout, can receive psychological help and do as many sessions as necessary,” continues Roman.
Volodymyr Yavorskyy and Roman Nekoliak at the premises of the Center for Civil Liberties, winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, in kyiv on May 15, 2023.
© / The Express
Since the beginning of the war, the CCL has trained dozens of journalists, students and associations who help it to collect the words of witnesses in the liberated territories. “We know that war crimes investigations are going to last a long time, five years, ten years, probably more,” says Volodymyr, imperturbably calm amid the hustle and bustle of the office. The Israelis have sometimes put dozens of years of catching Nazi war criminals. Only justice can bring us safety, only justice can guarantee us that these events will not happen again in the future.”
The Ukrainian lawyer, who worked for eight years in Belarus to help the victims of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, goes further: “When the Soviet Union fell, no investigation was carried out into the crimes of the USSR The breakup was done peacefully, so the Russians believed that everything was settled, that the Soviet Union had never committed mass crimes and that, therefore, our narrative of history was a fabric lies, anti-Russian propaganda. They don’t believe that their army can be guilty of genocide. These investigations, with concrete cases, can change the mindset of Russians.”
Catching war criminals, only “a matter of time”
In March, the efforts of Ukrainian associations paid off, almost unexpectedly: the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin, implicated in the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia . For this war crime, the head of the Kremlin now risks arrest if he goes to a country that has signed the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC. “This is a huge step towards justice, which shows that the prosecution must target Putin and many high-ranking Russians, points out Volodymyr Yavorskyy. Some of them are rather stupid, they will travel, spend their holidays in Egypt or other African countries, and then we can catch them. It’s only a matter of time.”
The Center for Civil Liberties is part of the long term, whatever happens. The walls of the office of the director, the charismatic Oleksandra Matviitchuk, lack space to display all the prizes, diplomas and awards received by her team. She, as often in recent months, is absent. Today in Germany, yesterday in Austria, tomorrow in Switzerland. “This is the main change brought about by this Nobel Prize: he stole our director from us”, loose Volodymyr Yavorskyy in a stifled laugh. Sought after all over the world, the figure of human rights in Ukraine now only spends three or four days a month in his country at war.
It is true that the Nobel Peace Prize has not, for the moment, transformed the CCL, which is a bit cramped in its premises. But the international recognition of his fight will soon bring him into a new era. “The Nobel has above all upset the daily life of Oleksandra [Matviitchouk] and gives us a voice internationally, notes Volodymyr Yavorskyy. We receive substantial funding proposals, enough to greatly advance the association, but we are preparing these changes for three or four years from now. Our goal is not to become a huge organization, only to do our job.” With the hope that, by then, the war and its crimes will have ended in Ukraine.