18,000 episodes of war crimes through one heart. The story of human rights activist Oleksandra Matviychuk

Oleksandra Matviychuk, human rights activist and Head of the Board of the Center for Civil Liberties starts her day at half past eight in the office in the center of the capital. Online meetings and correspondence — as soon as she has a spare minute she grabs her smartphone to look at the screen: some things are rescheduled, and something appears just on the go.

Oleksandra Matviychuk told hromadske about why she started advocating for human rights, how she founded Euromaidan SOS, and how much pain of war crimes passes through her every day between working meetings and calls.

The understanding that evil is so close prompted me to become a human rights activist

After a short conversation at the beginning of our meeting, Oleksandra shows us the way to her office. There is a poster on the wall with images of the Heavenly Hundred. The Center for Civil Liberties printed several thousand of them. They sent these posters to state structures and asked to hang them on the walls instead of portraits of the President.

It’s raining outside her office window. “It’s just like in real life. I love the rain, and I’d walk under the rain.” Oleksandra smiles as we arrange a walk. But later the sky is clearing up, and we are already walking along sunny Khreshchatyk. The glow brings out her bright blue eyes and long wheat-colored hair. The earrings are the only thing in her look that is not made in Ukraine, says Matviychuk.

Oleksandra Matviychuk at work at the Center for Civil Liberties. photo: hromadske

Oleksandra is from a family of state employees: her father is a doctor and her mother is a teacher. The girl remembers the hungry 90s when the best treat was bread with butter and salt. Her parents loved her, but they used to say that she would have to achieve everything herself. Since childhood, Matviychuk dreamed of becoming a theater director. Oleksandra’s first awards, as a schoolgirl, were for writing a play, and she received the Vasyl Stus PEN award in 2007 for her contribution to the cultural sector.

She finally decided to study law to protect human dignity. During her studies at school, Oleksandra learned the story of Vasyl Stus. “He died in my lifetime. That is, a totalitarian system that destroys people and their rights is not a system of the Middle Ages. The understanding that evil is so close made me change in my school years.”

Impressed by the poet’s story, Matviychuk — from a russified family — began to speak Ukrainian and took an interest in human rights. She won a contest of research works on human dignity at school.

Growing up in the circle of dissidents also influenced the girl. “One of my teachers was Yevhen Sverstyuk, a political prisoner in Soviet camps. He took care of me and invited me home. He would gather decent people there. They said what they thought and lived as they said,” Oleksandra admires these people to this day.

She graduated from the gymnasium in her native Boyarka with a gold medal and decided to apply to the Law faculty of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv and faced corruption there. There was no External Independent Testing yet. Oleksandra was well prepared for the first exam — in law. The professor, the same one who taught her later, interviewed the applicant and left the classroom. “I think that he went to ask the admissions committee if I could get a 5 as a mark. Having a gold medal, I would then automatically get to the university”.

But I got a 4 in law, as well as in history. The third exam was Ukrainian language. The professor-philologist was not working at the Law Faculty. “When I quoted “Golden hubbub” by P. Tychyna while speaking about conjunctions, she just couldn’t give me a 4. I got accepted, almost the last one on the list”.

While still a student, the girl started working. She created the student self-government and was the President of the Student Parliament of the Law Faculty. Later, she gave lectures on human rights at trainings. She worked for an asset management company. Then she started working in the banking sector, developing legislation together with the IMF and the National Bank. Matviychuk had already built a certain career line, but everything changed when Viktor Yanukovych became president.

Oleksandra Matviychuk. photo: hromadske

Oleksandra gave up her career in the commercial sector and started acting to change the country. “The family was upset, they thought I had thrown away my talents — says Oleksandra and adds with emotion: — My parents started supporting me during the Maidan. They realized the significance of what I was doing.”

                  Euromaidan SOS

On November 21, 2013, the staff of the Center for Civil Liberties, which Oleksandra Matviychuk runs since it was founded, hung the EU flag on the window in its office. “We said that we didn’t care about Yanukovych, we were integrating into Europe. On this day, I took a statement about the commission of a crime to the Prosecutor General’s Office, because we believed that the government, as an executive power, overstepped its authority, it should not determine foreign policy and the way for the country,” says Matviychuk.

On November 30, after the Maidan crackdown, Matviychuk decided that they had not just to rally, but to do something as human rights activists. And they began to provide legal assistance to the victims. “We created a Facebook page and called it Euromaidan SOS. It was a risky venture because there wasn’t a single attorney among us. The first post was addressed to the victims encouraging them to apply for free legal assistance. The next one was addressed to attorneys”.

For several months, they worked around the clock, sleeping for 3-4 hours in the office. “I regret that I don’t have romantic memories like all the other protesters have: how they were warming up by the fire, singing the national anthem, and so on. We didn’t have time to think about what it would look like: the victory of the Maidan. We worked around the clock with human pain.”

We would break through to the detained at court hearings, to police stations, and hospitals. In three months, the Center for Civil Liberties database collected 16,000 requests for assistance. Oleksandra processed these requests, and together with her colleagues, they sent the first submission to the International Criminal Court, which opened a preliminary examination of the case against Ukraine.

In February 2014, her grandfather died in Luhansk, and a month later her grandmother died. Because of the revolution and all the human rights activities, Oleksandra could not say goodbye to them. And then Luhansk was occupied by the Russians, so she hasn’t had an opportunity to visit their grave.

Quiet morning on February 24, 2022

On February 24, Oleksandra woke up to the doorbell ringing at 4:00. When her husband went to open the door, she looked at her phone and saw dozens of missed calls.

She called back the last person who called her and found out that Russian troops started bombing cities. “It was a very quiet morning. Because it’s already happened — why panic now? My husband started packing some stuff, I made breakfast as I’d never done before, and then we went to work.”

On February 24, the entire CCL team was in Kyiv. Then some left the capital. Those who stayed moved from their apartments to a pre-agreed place. “Judging by how it was in 2014, we knew that Russia was looking for activists to break their resistance. We didn’t want to make it any easier for Russia.”

Oleksandra Matviychuk. photo: hromadske

Matviychuk has always worked hard. But during the first 1.5 months after the invasion, she worked like never before — beyond human capabilities. She was fueled by the rage because the troops of another country came to destroy everything that she held dear. The adrenaline also helped: no one knew what would happen tomorrow. “But, among other things, we were fueled by another emotion — a great love for our country, for people, for freedom.”

“No one would say to a man: “That’s a nice suit you are wearing!”

The concept of freedom excludes any discrimination. However, it happened that Oleksandra experienced an arrogant attitude toward her because she was a woman. When she would ask professional questions, officials would say that she had a nice dress. “In fact, I love dresses, and yes, it was beautiful, but obviously this was not what I wanted to hear at the moment when I asked a specific question. If a man had asked why the experiment of electing the head of the local police was not implemented in other regions, no one would answer him: That’s a nice suit you are wearing! And for some reason, that’s what they would answer a woman.”

To correct this, Matviychuk advises calling a spade a spade and speaking out about harassment. She says that women who hesitate should think about others, too. “We all stand on the shoulders of our predecessors, men and women. In particular, we have independence, because previous generations cherished and fought for it in much more difficult conditions. You may not get the victory in your case, but this is definitely a delayed success for more people in Ukraine in the future.” Oleksandra assures that the system will change if society demands it.

              18,000 stories of pain

To date, Matviychuk’s team has documented 18,000 war crime episodes.

Since 2014, people have been telling human rights activists terrible stories: they were beaten, raped, hammered into wooden boxes, electrocuted through their genitals, forced to write with their own blood, and tortured in front of their relatives. One woman told them how someone tried to remove her eye with a spoon. Another victim couldn’t stop hearing the sound of scotch tape, because, in the place where he was held, people were first wrapped in tape, and then beaten.

“I remember the first report in 2014, it was called 'Those who went through hell'. I then deliberately chose the topic of tortures: the war would last for a long time, so I had to get used to such stories. I can’t get used to it,” Oleksandra says with tears in her eyes.

After February 24, the number of such stories simply goes off the scale.

“At some point, you realize that people are telling you this hoping that justice exists, even if it is delayed. This is very obliging because people expect something from you. You’re not a historian, you’re not documenting it for the national archives.”

There are particularly many cases of gender-based violence. First of all, we are talking about sexual violence in various forms — not only rape but also undressing in public and rape threats.

Ukraine’s law enforcement system is already overloaded with war crimes, and the International Criminal Court will focus on investigating only a few cases in the future. Therefore, Ukrainian human rights activists are promoting the initiative to create a tribunal for Putin and war criminals.

“Our ambitious goal is to document every minor war crime in every locality to examine it and punish for it in the future. Russia is used to impunity, committing war crimes in different countries for decades. That’s why they’re still doing whatever they want. So if we want sustainable peace, we need justice,” emphasizes Matviychuk.

Oleksandra Matviychuk. photo: hromadske

         You need strength to win

Oleksandra is sure: “The Russians will not succeed, and we will win. “We already have an antidote to learned helplessness. Do you remember the popular poster “I am a drop in the ocean” during the Maidan? Yes, we can’t end the war on our own, but nothing will change without the efforts of each individual. We will pay a high price to finally break away from the Russian civilizational space with its culture, where there is no gender equality, with its dominant violence. We need to prepare for a long marathon that we will win.”

Oleksandra knows what she’s talking about when she says that we need to prepare for a long marathon, and therefore save our strength. This summer, her body started failing: Oleksandra lost weight, got memory problems, and lost energy. She can now feel the consequences of her traumatic work with pain. However, Matviychuk does not have an ultimate recipe for recovery.

Photo 5: Oleksandra Matviychuk. photo: hromadske

She says that people help her the most: “My bubble is great, there are not only victims of war crimes, but also ordinary people who do incredible things. This gives you strength, but you also need to rest. I used to think that rest was not for me, but in August I realized that you should not forget about yourself while working.”

To stay mentally and physically fit, Oleksandra advises you to treat some things like work: eat, sleep, and give yourself a break from negative news.

The partner material is published as an advertisement. The article was created in collaboration with the UN Women project “Decentralization Reforms and Community Security: Transformative Approaches to Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Ukraine” funded by the Danish government.

Journalist Yulia Kuzmenko, editors Khrystyna Kotsira and Victoria Beha, designer Tetiana Kostik, and creative producer Anna Sokha worked on the piece.