Interview – Oleksandra Matviichuk
Oleksandra Matviichuk is a human rights lawyer, and head of the Center for Civil Liberties that works to defend freedom and human dignity in Ukraine and the OSCE region. She has experience in creating horizontal structures for massive involvement of people in human rights activities against attacks on rights and freedoms, as well as a multi-year practice of documenting violations during armed conflict. She is the author of a number of reports to various UN bodies, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court. Together with other partners she created the ‘Tribunal for Putin’ initiative in order to document international crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in all regions of Ukraine, including the occupied territories. In 2016 she received the Democracy Defender Award for ‘Exclusive Contribution to Promoting Democracy and Human Rights’ from OSCE. In 2017 she became the first woman to participate in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program of Stanford University. In 2022 she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award, the Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament and recognized as one of the 25th influential women in the world by Financial Times. In 2022 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for the work of her organization the Center for Civil Liberties. In 2025 she received the Dutch Auschwitz Award. In 2026, she was named an Honourable Member of European Order of Merit by European Parliament, an honor recognizing her significant contribution to European integration and the protection of European values.
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Where, in your opinion, is the most interesting research and discussion happening in your field?
The most interesting research in my field is happening not in academic halls, but where law encounters a reality that does not yet have a name. When the full-scale invasion began, part of my team and I stayed in Kyiv to continue our work. Then the war took the form of a column of Russian tanks trying to encircle my city. But several years have passed, and this is now a different war. This is a war of unmanned systems, mass drone attacks, the use of AI, complete transparency of the battlefield, and rapid weapons of mass destruction. All previous experience turned out to be irrelevant. In our database, which already counts more than a hundred thousand episodes of Russian crimes, the share of drone attacks on the civilian population is growing. This practice has been called a "human safari". Russian drones purposefully hunt people on bicycles, families in civilian cars. My colleagues worked on a case where a Russian drone struck two-year-old Dmytryk, who was simply playing in his yard. The operator clearly saw that it was a child but directed the drone at the boy anyway. If such things are already becoming the norm when drones still require a human, then what awaits us when AI fully controls these drones?
How has your understanding of the world changed over time, and what (or who) caused the most important shifts in your thinking?
Truthfully, I have rethought a lot over these years. Previously, for me, war was the collapse of civilization. Unfortunately, I have come to understand that war is part of life. And the fact that for three decades I was lucky enough to live in at least relative peace still means nothing. Security is not a given. And very many people in different parts of the world know this from their own experience. The situation will only get worse. The international system, founded on the UN Charter and international law, is broken. It was created after World War II to prevent mass violence. Yet even my smartphone has an expiration date, while this system has never been reformed. So it is not surprising that the International Committee of the Red Cross notes a rapid increase in the number of armed conflicts worldwide. A similar situation existed before World War II. That is why life cannot be postponed. If we stop loving, rejoicing in simple things between funerals, sharing warmth, that is, if we stop doing what makes us human, then they win. The war wins. It will take our whole life. And we have no other life, and I am not going to give it to the war.
Ukraine has been resisting Russian aggression for more than ten years now, starting in 2014. Ukrainian society has paid an immense price for this, yet has demonstrated extraordinary resilience. Given your work with victims and communities, what does everyday life look like today, and what sustains this resilience?
There is an important thing that the international community understands poorly. We got the chance to restore Ukraine's independence only three decades ago, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The fall of the authoritarian regime following the Revolution of Dignity 12 years ago paved the way for the country's democratic path. So, people in Ukraine never had the luxury of relying on stable democratic institutions. We are still only building them. So, the source of our resilience is in local democracy, self-organization, horizontal initiatives, the agency of ordinary people, and their belief that their efforts have meaning.
But everyday life during a full-scale war is something far from the norm. When we go to sleep, we do not know if we will wake up the next morning. Because war is like a lottery: maybe your house will be hit by a Russian missile tonight. Despite this, I have stopped going to the bomb shelter. There is simply a limit beyond which a person stops reacting properly to danger. Because reacting takes energy. And a night in a bomb shelter costs you the ability to work properly the next day. And if you respond as instructed every time there is a missile threat, you can quickly run out of strength. So, our life looks like this. Stay on your feet as long as you have strength. After taking a hit, recover quickly. Move fast, faster than the opponent. Know that weight does not decide everything. Protect your vulnerabilities, hit his vulnerabilities, know them. Remember that the stands cheer for the length of the fight, but you'd better make it shorter. Remember that this will end sooner or later, and you just need to stand one more minute.
You have argued that today, people's security and their rights depend not so much on international law as on their ability to defend themselves. Based on what you see on the ground, how is this shift felt in everyday life, and what does it mean for the role of citizens in Ukraine?
When the full-scale invasion began, the international system of peace and security did not work — protection came primarily from the self-organization of Ukrainian society, not from the system meant to guarantee it. This is not a rejection of international law — it is a diagnosis: law without a real instrument of enforcement remains a declaration, and an active civil society is a kind of backup for the state during existential challenges. Today, what comes first is not so much the UN Charter or the Geneva Conventions as society's capacity for resistance. This winter, Russia purposefully destroyed civilian infrastructure. Millions of people in Ukraine lived without heating, electricity, or water in temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius. It is hard for me to convey how difficult it was. But all the banks worked, the parliament held sessions, schools held classes, and hospitals performed operations. This is exactly what "total defense" looks like: when a simple act, like giving lectures to your students, becomes an act of resistance.
Although Russia initially framed the illegal 2022 invasion as a "special military operation," it is now viewed as a full-scale war threatening the very existence of Ukraine. Do you think Western societies fully understand what is at stake?
No, Western societies still do not understand that for Ukrainians, this war is genocidal. Putin openly says that there is no Ukrainian nation, no Ukrainian language, no Ukrainian culture. All these years, we have been documenting how these words turn into horrifying practice.
Russians physically eliminate active people in the occupied territories — mayors, journalists, children's writers, priests, teachers, and business owners. They ban the Ukrainian language and culture. They plunder and destroy Ukrainian cultural heritage. They send Ukrainian children to re-education camps, where they are told that they are not Ukrainian but Russian children, that their parents or relatives have abandoned them, and that they will be given to Russian families to be raised as Russians. To destroy a national group, you do not need to kill all its members. You can forcibly erase their identity — and the whole national group disappears. That is why we cannot stop resisting Russian aggression. If Russia occupies Ukraine, then we simply will not exist. Countries that get tired of proving their identity disappear.
There is an increasing discussion of negotiated solutions based on the logic of "land in exchange for security guarantees." From Ukraine's perspective, what risks do such approaches pose to long-term security? In this context, how do the current debates around NATO — especially signals from President Trump questioning US commitment — affect trust in Western security guarantees?
This war began in 2014 with the occupation of Crimea and the eastern regions. At that time, Ukraine was a neutral country under its Constitution and had no chance at all of liberating the occupied territories. Ukraine signed two peace agreements with Russia. And how did Russia use this? It turned occupied Crimea into a powerful military base, produced artillery shells, prepared its economy for a possible wave of sanctions, prepared its troops — and began the full-scale invasion. Because Russia is an empire, and an empire has a center but no borders. An empire always seeks to expand. What is needed is not bargaining over territories, but real security guarantees. And no one is ready to offer them. Many countries cannot even defend themselves. On top of everything, Ukraine gave up the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal in exchange for security guarantees. Now we have a sad joke: if you give up your nukes, one guarantor will seize 20 percent of your territory, and another will take control of your natural resources. Ukrainians have learned this lesson well. Real security is built not by promises but by institutional commitments and by one's own capacity to defend oneself.
You have advocated for the creation of a special tribunal to address crimes of aggression. Since 2025, initiatives led by Ukraine and the Council of Europe, along with growing support from states and the European Union, have advanced this process. Why is this necessary, what difference can it make in practice, and how realistic is it that it will be implemented and ensure real accountability?
The crime of aggression is, in essence, the "mother crime", which opens the way to committing other crimes: without punishment for it, only the consequences are punished, not the cause. We already see concrete progress — on June 25, 2025, Ukraine and the Council of Europe signed an agreement on establishing the Special Tribunal, and in May 2026, thirty-six states — thirty-four Council of Europe members, joined by Australia and Costa Rica — as well as the European Union, adopted an Enlarged Partial Agreement. This is no longer an abstract idea, but a concrete institutional process. And it will have a huge impact on international law. Because in all of human history, we have only one precedent for punishment for the crime of aggression — the Nuremberg tribunal. But Nazi war criminals were tried only after the Nazi regime fell. And that is why we still have a way of thinking that justice is a privilege for the victors. We live in a new century. And our historical task is to make justice independent of how and when a war ends.
You have characterized Putin's logic as historical and imperial, whereas figures like Trump approach international politics from a more transactional point of view. These logics increasingly intersect, often overshadowing Russia's limited military successes and Ukraine's continued resilience. Where does Ukraine stand between them, and how can a just peace be achieved?
Putin's logic and Trump's logic differ but are very similar in one thing: both are ready to trade someone else's subjectivity. Imperial logic denies Ukraine's very right to exist, transactional logic reduces this existence to an object of exchange, and in both cases, Ukraine risks becoming an object rather than a party to the decision that determines its fate. A just peace is impossible as the result of an agreement between big players over the heads of those who paid the highest price for it. The key formula I insist on is this: Ukraine must be a party to the negotiations, not their object, and peace itself must be based on the principle that aggression should not be rewarded, grounded in international law, not in the interests of the strongest.
Ukraine is often described as a country in transition, both institutionally and in its struggle for freedom and democratic self-determination. In the broader context of democratic backsliding, what does Ukraine's experience tell us about resisting authoritarianism, and what role do hope and a long-term perspective play in shaping Ukraine's future, particularly its European path?
Ukraine is vivid evidence that a country's subjectivity is measured not by national income or the possession of nuclear weapons, but by citizens' readiness to defend their freedom. Ukrainians are rethinking the values of freedom and security, which Western societies have long taken for granted. First, for us, freedom is not a matter of self-expression but — however paradoxical it may sound — a value of survival. We would not have survived three centuries in the shadow of the Russian empire, nor preserved ourselves as a nation, if we had not stubbornly sought freedom this whole time. Second, we do not counterpose freedom and security. We need freedom for security, and security for freedom, because losing one inevitably means losing the other too. Third, for us, the state is a living environment, not just a set of services. It is what preserves our identity. One can love the imperfect. Even the imperfect must be defended and preserved. That is why people in Ukraine define victory rather ambitiously. Victory means achieving our historical goals: a final break with the "Russian world" and a return to the European civilizational space. And whoever plans for the longer-term wins.
What is the most important advice you could give to scholars who are just beginning their careers?
If a theory cannot withstand contact with reality, it is dead, and the best thing one can do is go back to the field: talk to the people whose experience you are trying to explain, before offering them solutions. I also urge choosing uncomfortable topics that require intellectual courage, because that is exactly how the knowledge that the world truly lacks is born.
Editorial Credit: Konstantina Oikonomou