This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: We begin today’s show in Ukraine, where Russia has launched multiple missile and drone attacks today on the capital Kyiv and other regions. Ukraine is already facing a cold, dark winter after Russian strikes destroyed about half of the country’s energy infrastructure.
On Monday, President Biden said the United States will send nearly $2.5 billion more in weapons to Ukraine before President-elect Donald Trump returns to office in a few weeks. The package includes air defense missiles; munitions for rocket and artillery systems; anti-tank weapons and more. Separately, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced $3.4 billion in economic assistance to Ukraine. Since Russia’s invasion nearly three years ago, Congress has approved $175 billion in total assistance to Ukraine. Biden is rushing aid before President-elect Trump takes office in three weeks; on the campaign trail, Trump expressed skepticism about sending more aid and repeatedly pledged to end the war in his first 24 hours in office.
This comes as Russia and Ukraine have completed a prisoner swap, repatriating more than 300 prisoners of war in a deal brokered by the United Arab Emirates ahead of the new year. On the Ukrainian side, the swap included some prisoners who had been held for over two years, including soldiers who defended Snake Island in the Black Sea and others who held out for months defending the southern city of Mariupol from Russia’s invasion.
SERHII: [translated] My son is 5 years old now. The last time I saw him, he was 2 years old. That’s why my son probably didn’t recognize me. I used to have a beard and hair. He was 2 years old. I lost 44 pounds.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Meanwhile, today marks 25 years since Russian President Vladimir Putin became president of Russia.
For more, we’re joined in Kyiv by Oleksandra Matviichuk, leading Ukrainian human rights lawyer. She’s worked with the Tribunal for Putin initiative to document over 80,000 war crimes committed by Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. She leads the human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. In the same year, she received the Right Livelihood Award. Her recent piece for The Hill is headlined “Ukraine faces a cold, dark winter after Russia’s energy strikes.”
Oleksandra, welcome back to Democracy Now! We’re speaking to you in Kyiv. Could you describe what the situation there is on the ground as the capital city of Ukraine comes under attack from Russia?
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: This night, we had the next rockets and drone attack to Kyiv and to other cities and settlements in the country. And this has become quite regular phenomena. Russia wants to destroy completely Ukraine energy system and to make millions of Ukrainians to face the winter without heating, electricity, water, light and internet connection. But what I want to say, that due to the work of ordinary people who repair the civil infrastructure, we are able to meet this New Year Eve with light. And this is a bright symbol of Ukrainian resilience.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And could you explain, Oleksandra? Your organization has been documenting war crimes. You’re working with this tribunal on Putin to document war crimes, 80,000. I mean, if you could just give a sense of what kinds of crimes have been occurring in Ukraine for the almost — the last almost three years, since Russia’s invasion?
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: I’m a human rights lawyer, which means that I applied the law to defend people and human dignity for many years. But now I found myself in a situation when the law doesn’t work. What we document, we document how Russian troops destroying residential buildings, schools, churches, museums and hospitals. They’ve taken evacuation corridors. They’re torturing people in filtration camps. They’ve forcibly taken Ukrainian children to Russia. They’re abducting, robbing, raping and killing civilians in the occupied territories. And the entire U.N. system of peace and security can’t stop it. Russia uses war crimes as the method of warfare. Russia instrumentalized the pain. Russia used the pain as a tool how to break people’s resistance and to occupy the country.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Oleksandra, you know, we last spoke to you, in fact, just days after the invasion, in February 2022. I mean, conditions have been so brutal. You’re in Kyiv, which has come under constant attack. Explain why you made the decision to stay in Kyiv all this time and how you and those who you know in the city have coped with the constant — the power blackouts and other things that have happened as Russia has continued its assault.
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: I decided to stay because this is my home. This is my country. This is my family. And we will fight for our freedom and for our human dignity. I remember this time very clearly, because not just Putin but also our international partners were confident that Ukraine has no potential to resist to such enormous opposing power. And I remember how even international organizations evacuated their personnel.
But ordinary people remained. And ordinary people started to do extraordinary things. It were ordinary people who helped to survive under artillery fires. It were ordinary people who took people out from the ruined cities. It were ordinary people who broke through the encirclement to provide humanitarian aid. And you know what? Suddenly, it became obvious that ordinary people fighting for their freedom and human dignity are stronger than even the second army in the world.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s talk, Oleksandra, about what you think the prospects are for some kind of a peace or ceasefire deal. Moscow has recently rejected a peace plan by U.S. President-elect Trump to end the war, which proposed delaying Kyiv’s NATO membership in exchange for a ceasefire. This is Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov speaking last week.
SERGEY LAVROV: [translated] We cannot be satisfied with empty talk. So far, all we hear is talk about the need to come up with some kind of truce, and it is not particularly hidden that this truce is needed in order to gain time to continue pumping Ukraine with weapons so that they can get themselves in order, carry out additional mobilization and so on. A truce is a road to nowhere. We need final legal agreements that will fix all the conditions for ensuring the security of the Russian Federation and, of course, the legitimate security interests of our neighbors, but in the context that will secure the impossibility of violating these agreements in an internationally legal manner.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that’s Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Oleksandra, if you could respond to what he said and what Ukraine’s demands are? What do you expect might happen once Trump comes into office in just a few weeks? And do you think Ukraine should be making concessions? And if so, what concessions?
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: I’m not surprised with this response from Russia, because Putin doesn’t want peace. Putin started this war not just to capture one more piece of Ukrainian land. Putin started this war to occupy and to destroy the whole Ukraine and to go further, to attack next countries and to forcibly restore Russian Empire. And the problem is that after two-and-a-half years of large-scale invasion, Putin didn’t refuse from this goal, because human life is the cheapest resources in Russian state. And we have to take this goal seriously in all our strategies and all our visions how to stop Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. And this means that we have to design a real security guarantees which make Putin’s goal not just to postpone it in time, but make it impossible for Putin to achieve.
And this is important, because people in Ukraine want peace much more than anyone else, because the war is horrible. But peace doesn’t come when country which was invaded stop resisting to Russian aggression. That’s not peace. That’s occupation. And occupation is horrible. It’s just the same war but in another form, because Russian occupation means torture, rapes, enforced disappearances, denial of your own identity, forcible adoption of your children, filtration camps and mass graves. And that’s why we have no other choice, because if we stop resisting to Russian aggression, it will be no more us.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And what do you expect with Trump coming into office in a few weeks? What changes in U.S. policy do you anticipate? And do you think that him, Trump, being in office may force Ukraine to give up territory in exchange for a peace deal with Russia? Trump has said he would end the war within 24 hours of coming into office.
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: It’s very difficult for me to predict the policy of next president administration. I hope that Trump will use this famous Reagan principle to the peace through strength. And once again, we have to take the real goal of Russia seriously. Putin doesn’t want some more part of Ukrainian Donbas. Putin wants to achieve his historical goal to forcibly restore Russian Empire. He think about his legacy. So it’s not about territories at all. But for us, for Ukrainians, it’s also not just about territories, because we are fighting for people who live there. It’s our people. It’s our relatives. It’s our families. It’s our citizens. We can’t leave them alone for torture and death under Russian occupation. We have no moral rights. We have to return the human dimension of this war when we’re discussing these difficult geopolitical issues.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Oleksandra, what about the role of the European Union, the key countries in the European — France, Germany — their role in pushing for a ceasefire, and also the amount of aid that they’ve been giving to Ukraine, whether you think that’s adequate, and what you anticipate happening in the future as the EU also cuts back on aid?
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: It’s very difficult for me to provide expertise on the military assistance, because I’m not a military expert. But what I see, because I oftenly travel — it’s not just to Washington, but to Berlin, to Paris, to Rome, to Brussels — I see that politicians in the European Union started to understand that their countries are safe only because Ukrainians still fighting. I see this even in our human rights work.
What do I mean? Russia is empire. And empire has a center but has no borders. And empire always try to expand. And when I interviewed people who survived Russian captivity, they told me that Russians see their future like this: At first, we’ll occupy Ukraine, and then, together with you, we will go to conquer in other countries. And the process of forcible mobilization, Ukrainian citizens to Russian army, all these years is going on in the occupied territories. So, once again, people in the European Union are safe only because Ukrainians are still fighting with Russian aggression and don’t let Putin to go further.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And I want to go back to something that we mentioned earlier, which is this prisoner swap that’s just taken place. Russia and Ukraine have swapped more than 300 prisoners of war in a mass exchange brokered by the United Arab Emirates. If you could comment on what you think the significance of this is and what’s known about the Ukrainians who remain in Russian captivity, including civilians? And then also address Russia’s targeting of journalists. One case is Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who died in Russian detention earlier this year.
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: I worked with the topic of illegally detained civilians and prisoners of the war for 10 years. I personally interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people who survived in Russian captivity. And they told me how they were beaten, raped, smashed into wooden boxes. Their fingers were cut. Their nails were torn away. Their nails were drilled. There were electrical shocks through their own genitalia. One woman told me how her eye was took out with a spoon. Because Russia ignore not just all provisions of international humanitarian law; Russia ignore all senses of humanity. So, that’s why yesterday prisoner swap, it was so important for all people in Ukraine, because we released more than 180 people who will celebrate this holiday with their families. And this is extremely important, as well as thousands and thousands prisoners of the war and illegally detained civilians, among them a lot of women, are still in Russian captivity.
And let me tell a little bit about my friend and colleague Victoria Roshchyna, which you mentioned. She was Ukrainian journalist, extremely brave. She worked in occupied territories, because she thought that this is her journalist obligation to be there with the people who were alone with the occupiers. She was just 27 years old, and she died in September in Russian prison after illegally arrest. And Russians, for several times, refused to return her body to her family, because her body probably can tell more about what happened with her, why she was dead. And I ask myself: If we can’t press Russia to return the dead body of Ukrainian journalist to her family as international community, how we can to protect freedom of speech in the world at all?
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Oleksandra, finally, today marks 25 years since Putin has been president of Russia. Your reflections on that? And, of course, this is the last day of the year 2024. What do you hope will happen next year, in 2025? You wrote in your recent piece in The Hill, “Despite these horrific war crimes, the spirit of the Ukrainian people is unbroken.”
OLEKSANDRA MATVIICHUK: Let me quote my Russian human rights colleagues. They told that Putin, he has a big ear. He hear what Russians want, and he tried to implement it with this war, to restore the force of this Russian Empire forcibly and to demonstrate Russian people’s so-called Russian glory. And that is why the democratic success of Ukraine, it’s so important, because it’s not just a war between two states. This is a war between two systems: authoritarianism and democracy. And only success of Ukraine will provide a chance for democratic future for Russia itself, because Russian people, they can tolerate war criminal being their president, but Russian people will not tolerate loser war criminal.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, we’re going to have to leave it there. Oleksandra, thank you so much for joining us. Oleksandra Matviichuk, leading Ukrainian human rights lawyer and head of the human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, which in 2022 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And she’s also the recipient of the Right Livelihood Award. Her recent piece for The Hill is headlined “Ukraine faces a cold, dark winter after Russia’s energy strikes.” She joined us from Kyiv.
Next up, Gaza is entering its second winter under attack from Israel, and talks to reach a ceasefire deal with Hamas appear to have stalled. We’ll get an update on the ceasefire talks and speak with two doctors who have worked at Gaza hospitals this year, including one who just left. All that and more, coming up.
