Nobel Peace Prize winner Oleksandra Matviichuk: "Victor's justice" is a false paradigm
Oleksandra Matviichuk is one of the most influential women in Ukraine and in the world.
For 11 years in a row, she has been collecting and documenting Ukrainians’ testimonies about Russian war crimes and defending their rights on global platforms together with the Center for Civil Liberties.
The Centre, which is headed by Matviichuk, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. This is the first time in its history that Ukraine has received such an award.
"After that, doors opened for us that had previously been closed. Before, Ukrainian human rights defenders would only be invited to specific venues where speeches were made but no decisions were taken. Now we can also attend the closed-door meetings where things are actually decided," Oleksandra explains.
Sometimes she is the only Ukrainian woman at such events, and she admits that this is a huge responsibility for her.
"But I don't feel weak. I feel that there are millions of people behind me who are fighting too. And that’s a very strong position to be in," Oleksandra emphasises.
Does it make sense to fight for human rights in a world where the legal system has proven to be ineffective? When should Russia’s military and political leadership be put on trial: now or after victory? And how has Trump's second term in the White House already affected international justice and advocacy for support for Ukraine around the world?
Ukrainska Pravda spoke to Oleksandra Matviichuk about all these issues. This is an abridged version of the conversation. The full interview is available in Ukrainian on Ukrainska Pravda's YouTube channel.
"It's been a long time since I've felt bored"
2025 started off at a time of huge political turmoil. Does this make it challenging for you to conduct international advocacy campaigns in support of Ukraine?
It isn’t easy. Unfortunately, the human dimension is not a priority at all now.
Look at what we've been hearing about lately: minerals, territorial concessions, and even suits – but no one’s been talking about people.
That’s why we’ve launched our People First campaign – to bring the human dimension back into all political processes. We need to talk about the 20,000 abducted and deported Ukrainian children, about people living under occupation, about the thousands of illegally detained civilians and prisoners of war being held in horrific conditions every day, who are tortured and denied medical care.
What specific difficulties have human rights defenders faced since the change of leadership in the White House?
There’s an attack on international justice happening right now. The US has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is not related to Ukraine, but to the arrest warrant issued by the ICC against the Israeli leadership and the leaders of Hamas.
But this is still a blow, because these sanctions, especially if they are ramped up, will call into question the ICC’s ability as an institution to conduct investigations not only with regard to Gaza, but also to Ukraine, Sudan and others for whom this court is essentially the court of last resort, as they have no other hope of justice.
And I don’t think this is an exclusively American issue: it’s a global trend. The international system of peace and justice is being destroyed. The system wasn’t perfect, it dealt with global challenges in very different ways, but it was based on the UN Charter and international law, which were based on human rights and freedoms. Even the world's biggest cannibals used to be forced to pretend that human rights and freedoms were important when they spoke at the UN General Assembly. Yes, they’d go back to their countries and do terrible things, but at least they had to pretend.
Now there is no need to pretend anymore. Now might is right.
Has it become more difficult to communicate with members of the US Congress, particularly Republicans, on a personal level?
I’ll pay attention to this when I go back to America.
I’ve spent a lot of time in Washington over the last six months. Basically, there are people in both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party who understand that we are fighting not only for ourselves, but for freedom, which has no national borders, and that only the spread of freedom makes our world safer. That is why it is in America's pragmatic interest to defend freedom and support the people who are fighting for it. There are such people in both parties.
Have you had a chance to talk to Keith Kellogg, Donald Trump's special envoy to Ukraine? How does he respond to the issue of war crimes?
I’ve met with him several times, and with other people who are involved in this issue. Let's just say that there is an understanding of the situation. The question is what decision will eventually be made.
When you talk about human rights and defending human rights, you’ll often hear people say: "It's boring and no one’s interested." Does this offend you?
No, there are many things that don't offend me at all anymore, that don't surprise me or make me uncomfortable.
Why do people have this idea about defending human rights?
Because they probably think that human rights and defending them is just about upholding the abstract norms of conventions and declarations. They think it’s just legal work.
But we stand on the shoulders of our predecessors – the dissidents who stood at the origins of the Ukrainian human rights movement. And not many of them were lawyers. There were military men, linguists, physicists, mathematicians, philosophers...
Defending human rights is more of a vocation. To protect human rights in a situation where the law is not working, you need to have a wide range of related knowledge from different fields, to be creative.
And unfortunately, it's definitely not boring. It's exhausting. I'm not complaining, but I would like it to be boring and predictable. I dream of calmer times for all of us, because it’s been a long time since I’ve felt bored.
"Empathy, which I thought was a vulnerability of mine, is actually the source of my great strength"
"When strength ends, character begins" – this phrase is a guiding principle in your life. What do you have more of in your current work: strength or character?
I believe I have both. You understand that what you’re doing and what you’re working on may not achieve instant results: they will be visible much later. But you do it anyway, because you can't do otherwise. You do it because you have dignity and you understand that all our efforts make sense now.
Human rights defence is a psychologically challenging profession, especially in wartime, when the international legal system is not working and there is so much pain and suffering around us.
You once said that you are a great empath and you let all the stories run through you. How often do you catch yourself thinking that you are burning out?
That’s not an easy question to answer. Whatever your level of empathy, it’s really hard to document war crimes for 11 years in a row. Because what we have been facing is not only beyond the law: it also goes beyond any morality and the basic concepts of humanity.
When I was a law student, I decided that I would never, ever do anything related to criminal law in my life because I was empathetic and loved people.
We can laugh about that now, because we [the Center for Civil Liberties – ed.] were the first human rights organisation to send mobile teams into Crimea and Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in February 2014.
Since then, I have immersed myself in documenting people's testimonies. I have personally interviewed hundreds of people. They told me about how they were beaten, raped, had limbs cut off, had electric shocks applied to their genitals... It's all really difficult.
But what did I realise? Empathy, which I thought was a vulnerability, is actually the source of my great strength. Because when I tell people details of the cases my colleagues and I are working on, pragmatic and detached people can't even listen to them. Men and women alike.
It is very challenging to be around pain. It’s a substance that starts to burn you from the inside.
Do you get tired, and do you have the urge to stop and take at least a short break?
There has never been a moment when I’ve said to myself: "I can't do this anymore." But I feel tired all the time. I'm one of those people who was tired even before the full-scale invasion began.
On the other hand, I have no right to complain, because my fatigue is nothing compared to that of my colleagues who joined the Armed Forces. I sleep in a bed, not a trench. So it’s all relative.
"We must make justice independent of the end of the war"
Your empathy, which we’ve already mentioned, comes across in your speeches. But you have been forced to repeat the same things to the world for many years now.
Aren't you tired of doing that? And why do you think you are not being heard: is it because people don't want to hear, or perhaps your messages are not strong enough?
The problem is not the messages. But I wonder about this myself, because at one point I did start to feel that I was repeating the same thing a hundred or a thousand times using the same words.
On the other hand, the Bible has been saying the same things for thousands of years. So you have to be patient and keep on working.
Does it make sense to fight for people's rights in a world where the legal system has often proven ineffective?
Of course it does. The legal system is just one of the mechanisms that protect the space of freedom. It's not functioning effectively right now, that’s true, but I hope this is only temporary. The space of freedom must be safeguarded no matter what.
On the other hand, despite the wide range of tools available to document war crimes, there are few verdicts or even proceedings against the perpetrators. Why is that?
Because the legal system is not evolving as rapidly as the latest technologies. Moreover, there’s law and there’s politics, and there is a massive gap between them. As a result, even the mechanisms we currently have are ineffective.
But we still have to collect the evidence, because war crimes have no statute of limitations. And even if we can't punish the perpetrators today, when that opportunity arises tomorrow, we will have documented evidence to present in international courts, rather than just our tears.
This is important not just from a legal standpoint, but also in terms of society's communicative memory. Three years ago, Russia claimed that everything we had seen in Bucha had been staged. And as time passes, can you imagine what it's going to say next? [Russian troops committed multiple atrocities in Bucha, Kyiv Oblast, in 2022 – ed.]
Communicative memory lasts for only three generations. After that, the only meanings that remain are those we have been able to document and share.
In the context of punishing Russia for war crimes, there are two opposing views. Some argue that it should be done immediately, while others believe it should wait until after the war is over, citing the example of the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Does focusing on this historic trial help or hinder us in this discussion?
If we view this from the perspective that Nazi Germany, a mighty nation that once conquered much of the world, eventually collapsed and crumbled, and its war criminals, who had thought they were untouchable, were brought to justice and punished, then it’s extremely important.
But if we approach it from the perspective of how it should be implemented, we inevitably fall into a paradigm that I think is very flawed – the paradigm that "justice belongs only to the victors and is their privilege", that "you’ll only have a Nuremberg Tribunal if you win the war". I believe such views are totally false.
Furthermore, they absolve our generation of the responsibility entrusted to us. The Nuremberg Tribunal was a breakthrough in law and justice enforcement in the last century.
Our breakthrough should be to ensure that justice is independent of when the war ends and the conditions under which that happens.
The arrest of the former Philippines president is a wake-up call for Putin. He doesn't feel safe
Imagine this situation. Russia says: "We are ready to end the war, but on this condition. We are opposed to any punishment of our senior military and political leadership by international courts." Should Ukraine agree to this?
I can't predict what our senior leadership would do.
But I can give you an example: Russia's attempts to wreck the core Maidan case regarding the killings of peaceful protesters [during the 2014 Revolution of Dignity]. Russia was prepared to hand over 76 people from the occupied territories to Ukraine, including the Donetsk journalist Stanislav Aseyev, but it demanded five Berkut riot police officers in return. Moscow wanted to take them in order to stop the trial and destroy the case, as everything was already heading towards a verdict.
I remember all this very well, because we were working with both Ukrainians who were waiting for family members to be released from captivity, and Ukrainians who had lost family members during the shootings on the Maidan. Their interests were totally different.
Some of them said: "No, don’t hand over the riot police officers under any circumstances, don't ruin the case. Our relatives were killed. We have the right to justice." Others pleaded: "Please, do whatever it takes to bring our relatives back, every day in captivity is torment." Frankly, I would never want to be in the position of the person who has to make the final decision in that sort of situation.
I don't know what the terms of the current negotiations will be, how much they will have to do with peace, or how sustainable the results will be, but I know for sure that this does not override the pursuit of justice. The International Criminal Court is not going to close the proceedings, and it won’t withdraw the arrest warrant [for Putin – ed.].
Authoritarian regimes fall and their leaders are brought to justice. We have examples. The most striking one in our part of the world is Serbia, which initially resisted handing over former president Slobodan Milošević to The Hague but was eventually forced to do so. Just recently, former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte found himself at the ICC.
These are wake-up calls for Putin. He doesn't feel safe.
Do you see any signs of Russia and its representatives attempting to engage with the world's elites in order to at least mitigate potential punishment for themselves?
They're adamant that they should not be punished at all. This stems from their imperial culture, which is built on a long tradition of impunity: they believe they can kill people and erase their identity because "Why should there be punishment? It's our right!"
Why were the key players in the Soviet system of repressions never held accountable for their actions?
I'd like to quote some Russian dissidents here. They told me that in the 1990s there was a debate within their circles about whether historic trials should be held with respect to Stalinism and its crimes. But they said: "It was already clear to everyone that Stalin was a monster. So why state the obvious? Let's invest our time and efforts in reforms, in building a better future."
When they shared these memories with me, they said: "We were wrong. We should have invested time and effort in that too. Because now Stalin is no longer seen as a monster, but as an 'effective manager', and monuments are being erected to him in Russia."
So the opportunity to hold the Soviet system accountable slipped away?
Yes, the historical moment when such a trial could have taken place was lost. The fact that Stalin hadn’t lived to see it did not mean that that trial wasn’t necessary.
"Occupation doesn’t lessen human suffering. It just makes it invisible"
You’re in a very interesting situation: you’re the head of a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organisation, and you call on the West to give Ukraine weapons. How do people react when you say that?
That first year when I would arrive in a country and see headlines like: "Shock! Sensation! Nobel Peace Prize winner asks for weapons!" – that year is over now.
Yes, I am a human rights defender who has spent many years using the law to protect people and their freedoms, but now the law is not working! Let's do an experiment: take the Geneva Conventions, walk up to a Russian tank and wave them in front of the gun. Do you think the Russian tank will stop?
Some things need to be patiently explained to people who haven’t had our experience. For instance, they need to understand that peace doesn't come when a country under attack lays down its arms. In that case it wouldn't be peace, but occupation.
And occupation is not "the same war, just in a different form", as some people think. They say, "At least occupation reduces human suffering." No, occupation does not lessen human suffering: it just makes it invisible. Moreover, for many people occupation is not the end of their suffering – it's only the beginning."
Are you and your colleagues able to obtain evidence of war crimes from people currently living under occupation?
Absolutely. When the full-scale invasion began, we came together to form a national network of evidence collectors covering the entire country, including the occupied territories.
Currently we have 81,000 war crimes in our database, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can't track every individual case, but we do see some patterns.
What do these patterns indicate?
Firstly, Russia is attempting to alter the demographics of the population in these territories by bringing people in from various regions of Russia. Former state security officers, judges and military personnel are already settling in annexed Crimea. This is essentially colonisation.
Secondly, 1.6 million children in the occupied territories are now being subjected to a policy of identity destruction, since they are more susceptible to Russification. Russia is instilling complete obedience in them, ensuring they do as they are told. Basically, it is implanting authoritarian ideologies into these 1.6 million Ukrainian children.
Thirdly, the terror the Russians have unleashed in the occupied territories is so irrational that people don’t understand what to do to avoid the violence. One of the questions we ask in our surveys is "Why were you sent to the basement [i.e. the torture chamber]?" And people say: "We don't know. Maybe we just crossed the road in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Have Russian repressions in annexed Crimea intensified since 2022? Have they become more brutal against Crimean Tatars?
I'd say that on the whole, the Russians have stopped bothering to disguise their war crimes. Previously they would at least try to cover things up. For instance, they made Ihor Kozlovskyi [a prisoner of the Kremlin regime, captured in 2016, tortured, and later released in 2017 – ed.] hold a grenade to get his fingerprints. But now, no one even bothers with that.
There’s a Stalin-era phrase: "Show me the man, and I’ll show you the case against him." And that reflects where we are now.
Author: Sofiia Sereda, Ukrainska Pravda
Translation: Myroslava Zavadska and Artem Yakymyshyn
Editing: Teresa Pearce