Dear professors, dear colleagues, dear students, good evening and welcome. Thank you for joining us for this event organized by Ashes talks, Ashes DBA and Ashes Imagine. Before introducing our guest, allow me to speak briefly about the mission of Ashes Imagine because it gives our discussion tonight both its context and its urgency.
Created in 2021 thanks to the generous support of Adrian Nusbum, co-founder and CEO of Miracle, the Ashes Imagine Fellows program offers scholarship to students from war torn countries. It has since grown into a comprehensive initiative, a fellowship for students affected by conflict, an academic track dedicated to business and peace and business and human rights, and a student association fostering dialogue and awareness across our community.
Since 2022, Ashes Imagine has welcomed 20 students from Ukraine, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Belleris, and Israel. Their presence on campus is a constant reminder that peace, resilience, and reconstruction are not ab abstract ideas. They are lived realities that some of our classmates carry in their bodies, their memories, and their futures.
And tonight we welcome someone whose life work confronts these very realities with a clarity and resolve that command attention. Sitting with us on stage is Mrs. Alexandra Madvichuk, human rights lawyer, head for the center of civil liberties and 2022 Nobel Peace Price laurate. Mrs. Mrs.
Mvichuk, you have devoted your professional life to protecting human dignity and strengthening democratic freedoms in Ukraine and beyond. Your voice first emerged during the Euromaiden Revolution when you helped coordinate, assistance, and defend fundamental rights at a moment when the very idea of civic freedom was under assault. In the years that followed, you continued to reinforce civil society structures, promote accountability and safeguard truth in context where truth itself was under threat.
Your work has earned you the Sakurov Prize, the right livelihood award, the OCE democracy defender award, and most recently the 2025 Dutch Awards. You were also named doctor honoris kosa by the university catholic deuan a recognition of both your intellectual leadership and your moral authority. Your present here tonight career's particular resonance.
You are in Paris this week for December 10th the international human rights day. A date that commemorates the universal declaration of human rights and invites us to reflect on what dignity, justice, and freedom demand in practice. Not only from institutions, but from each of us. These words resonate deeply within an institution like ours where future leaders will shape businesses, policies, and societies.
They challenge us to confront the moral consequences of our decisions. Tonight is more than an introduction. It's the beginning of a conversation about engagement, civil society, the role of justice, what peace truly requires, and the responsibilities of our generation. Dear professors, dear colleagues, dear students, please join me in warmly welcoming Mrs. Alexandra Madvichuk.
[applause] [applause] Uh, thank you Pauline. Thank you again, Mrs. Alexander Raichuk for responding to the invitation of Asha. It is truly an honor to have you here tonight. First off, would you like to react to what has been said about your journey and your dedication to human rights? >> Thank you very much for this invitation.
It's a huge honor for me to address to this distinguished audience. I'm a human rights lawyer and I'm applying the law to defend people and human dignity for many years and I often heard that freedom and human rights are important but economic benefits, geopolitical interests, political careers are even more significant.
The fault of this approach is that peace and human rights are inextricably linked and state that grossly violate human rights provide a threat not just for its own citizens but for the peace and security in general. For 12 years already I have been documenting war crimes in this war which Russia has launched against Ukraine.
When large- scale war started, we united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions. We built national network of local documentators. We covered the whole country including the occupied territories and working together we jointly documented more than 91,000 episodes of our crimes. Let me share with you one story from our database.
This is a story of 10year-old boy Ilia from Maropal. When Russians tried to seize the city, they didn't allow the international committee of Red Cross to open green corridor and to evacuate civilians. Hence, Ilia and his mother like thousands of other people in Marupal had to hide in the basement of their residential building from Russian Shalin.
They melted snow to have water and they made fires to cook at least some food. But when supplies ran out, they were forced to go out and suddenly they appeared in the center of Russian shalin. Ilia's mother was hitting her head and the boy's legs were turned. With the last strength, his mother take your son to the friend apartment.
It was no medical assistance because prior to this Russians deliberately destroyed maternity hospital and entire medical infrastructure and in this friend department they just lay down on a coach and they hugged each other. They were lying like this for several hours. And this 10year-old boy told to my colleague how his mother died and got frozen right in his arms.
So when I trying to explain what we are doing, I always emphasize that we are not just documenting violations of Geneva and her conventions. While this war turned people into the numbers, we are returning people their names because people are not numbers and life of each person matters. And being a human rights lawyer, I have a question.
How we people who live in 21st century will defend a human beings their life their freedom their human dignity. Can we rely on the law or does just brutal force matter? The answer to this question is important not just for people in Ukraine, in Syria, in Sudan, in Myanma, in Nicaragua or Venezuela. The answer to this question will define our common future because we are losing freedom in the world.
80% of people live in non-free or partially free societies. And the problem is not just in the fact that in authoritarian countries the space for freedom is shrinking to the size of the prison cell. The problem is that even in developed democracies, people start to put into questions the universal declaration of human rights.
And there are reason for this because current generation they inherited their freedom from their grandparents. They start to take human rights for granted. They became consumers of democracy. They consider freedom as a possibility to make a choice between different cheeses in supermarket. So they start to exchange their freedom for economic benefits, for security concerns, and first and foremost for their own comfort.
But freedom is very fragile. You can't attain your freedom and human rights once and forever. We make our choice every day. In addition to this, we all live in post-informational world and people spend more and more time in digital reality which overloaded with fakes, disinformation and propaganda. People become very vulnerable to external manipulations.
It's lead to situation that people start to lose their ability to make a distinction between lie and truth. And now even inhabitants of the small community, the same small community, they have no more a shared sense of reality. Without a shared sense of reality, they can't do common actions without common actions.
How we can protect our freedom and our democracy? So let me tell several lessons learned from our Ukrainian case. First, we live in turbulent time. I don't know how historians in future will call this period, but the world order which is based on UN charter and international law is collapsing before our eyes. This system was created after the second world war to prevent wars and mass violence. But now it's just stolen.
It's reproducing ratalistic movements. Even my smartphone has an expiration date. The system has never been reformed. So it's easy to predict that such fires like wars will emerge more and more often in different parts of the globe because the international wiring is faulty and sparks are everywhere. Second, unpunished evil growth.
All this hell which we face in Ukraine, it's result of total impunity which Russia enjoyed for decades. Russian troops committed horrible crimes in Chichchna, in Muldova, in Georgia, in Mali, in Libya, in Syria, in other countries of the world. They have never been punished. They believe they can do whatever they want.
We must break the circle of impunity. We must demonstrate justice. Third, people need peace, not occupation. I work with people affected by this war directly. So, let me assure you that people in Ukraine dream about peace. But peace doesn't come when country which was invaded stop fighting. That's not peace. That's occupation.
And occupation is the same war but just in another form. Occupation doesn't decrease human suffering just make human suffering invisible. In Russian occupation it's not just changing one state flag to another. Russian occupation means enforced disappearances, torture, rape, denial of your identity, forcible adoption of your own children, filtration camps and mus graves.
This is Russian occupation. And last, people have power. Being a human rights lawyer in situation when the law doesn't work I know from my own experience that when you can't rely on the legal instruments when you can't rely on international system of peace and security you can still rely on people we get used to thinking through the categories of states and interstates organizations but ordinary people have a much greater power than they can even imagine ordinary people can change history.
Let me illustrate it with one story. Once I interviewed a professor on philosophy, scientist Eher Kazlovski. He's originally from Donutsk. He spent 700 days in Russian captivity. Before that, I interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, men and women. They told me how they were beaten, raped, smashed into wooden boxes.
Their fingers were cut, their nails were turned away, their nails were drilled. They were electrically shocked through their genitalia. One woman told me how her eye was dragged out with a spoon. So it was little that could surprise me. But Professor Ih Kazovski mentioned a tale which was insignificant to the evidence base. But this detail impressed me.
He described how he was kept in solitary confinement in tiny cell in basement with no window, no light, no fresh air. It was purely ventilated. It was difficult for him even to breath. Civage flows on the dirty floor. And through the opening of the civage, rats were scrolling down. So the tale which struck me this well-known professor in my country told me how he gave lecture on philosophy to this rests just to hear a sound of human voice and he told me that despite all his experience it's not a reason for him to treat
himself as a victim because the foundation of our existence is dignity. ity not victimhood and dignity is action. We are not hostages of the circumstances. We are participants of this historical process. And I'm here to say that despite everything, the story of our struggle and struggle for freedom and human dignity of people in other countries in different parts of the globe.
It's a lifeaffirming story because dramatic times raise hope because when freedom is denied it became powerfully break out through the every concrete individual and because we still have a hope and hope it's not a confidence that everything will be fine. Hope it's a deep understanding that all our efforts have a huge meaning.
Thank you [applause] dear Alexander. Thank you for your speech and we will start questioning you. So considering that you grew up in the postsviet Ukraine and that you witnessed the events in 2013 and 14 of yamadan the invasion of Russia in Crimea in 2014 and the start of the war in February 2022, second start of the war in February 22.
Was there a precise moment that shaped your decision to become the person you are today and to engage actively in documenting human rights violations? When I was a child studying in school, I got acquainted with Soviet dissident. Dissident it were intellectuals in Soviet Union from different fields of science and um life and um it was very brave people.
Um they do what they say and they say what they think. It sounds very simple but not very widespread. They had courage to stood up their voice against the entire totalitarian Soviet machine. Dissident movement uh were severely repressed in Soviet Union. Part of people were killed, part of people were jailed, part of people were locked for forcible psychological treatment.
But they didn't give up. So being a child in a school I was so inspired by this example that I decided myself that I have to study law and to continue this work for freedom and human dignity. So I created my human rights organization center for civil liberties immediately after graduation of the university. uh your your commitment [clears throat] has gained a particular dimension since uh the beginning of the war in Ukraine.
Uh efforts to establish a peace have since reached a deadlock. Um it may be because the definition of peace varies um with different countries and people. For example, many experts advocate that Russia had entered the world the war well before 2022 and indeed in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea.
So we ask you how do you define peace? >> You're totally right. There are a lot of manipulation with peace which is very painful for people who know what the war about for people in Sudan, for people in uh Afghanistan. Uh unfortunately Ukraine is not just hot spot in the globe. There are a lot of conflicts and the numbers just increasing from year to year.
And when I saw this in news that uh international federation of football provide award for President Trump for the peace, I it was clear for me that this the football federation has nothing similar with uh peacekeeping and like they just um diminishing this uh very important uh concept what the peace is about. Um I made a definition of peace and [clears throat] by myself in my noble peace speech uh then I told that peace it's a freedom to live without fear of violence and have a long-term perspective.
And u about your organization, you mentioned that it documented over 90,000 instance of violence and massive human rights violation and more than 14,000 people were killed including more than 700 children. And is it possible to to achieve peace without resentment after so many war crimes? And is it a short or a mediumterm resolution of the war conceivable? >> I was just recently in Syria.
Uh we came here as Ukrainians um to express our solidarity with people in Syria. Just a year ago, the bloody regime of Assad was fallen and um people in Syria have just one year of freedom and they working hard to re to reinvent their own country. So we came here uh to listen how we can help.
And uh in my delegation uh it was um two person who were former legally civil datist uh and spent um years in Russian prison. And both of them mentioned that they are Russian guards um when they discussing something um with each other they mentioned they that before uh they became the guards in the prison they uh were fighting in Syria. So this is the answer of the question unpunished civil growth.
Our Russian human rights colleagues from center memorial they published reports they analyzed Russian tactics in Cheschna in Syria in Ukraine and they told this is a same war crime playbook and they titled this report the chain of wars chain of crimes chain of impunity. We can't get peace without justice. Justice is precondition to peace.
Especially when we speak uh about a situation when Russia uses the war as a tool to achieve its geopolitical interests and uses war crimes, the methods how to win the war. So it's not about revenge, it's about justice and justice not just for people in Ukraine. We trying hard to prevent the next Russian attack to the next nation. >> Many [clears throat] defend that another way to reach peace in Ukraine is through international support.
The Europeans have again uh declared their support to Vladimir Zilinski while Donald Trump seems to have failed to relaunch uh the negotiation uh with Russia. What can we as a friendly country that doesn't know war that has not been attacked by Russia do to help Ukraine? And do you still have faith in international institution institutions like the UN and in foreign countries to bring help to Ukraine? >> I think that we have to reformulate this question uh how you can help yourself.
Putin started this large scale war not just to occupy more part of Ukrainian land. It's very naive to think that he lost hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers to occupy Abdka or Bahmut. I'm sorry. He's not mad. It's a tiny Ukrainian cities which majority of Russians can't even find on the map. Putin started large-scale war because he want to occupy and destroy the whole Ukraine and move further.
He see Ukraine as a bridge to Europe. His logic is historical. He dreams about his legacy. He want to forcibly restore Russian empire. And if he not be able to stop Putin in Ukraine, he will go further. He will attack next country. So the question is how to help yourself because Ukraine is not beneficiary of your support.
Ukraine is contributor and provider of your security. This is a reality and what has to be done a lot of decisive actions. But let me focus on something which I found very essential. We lost human dimension in political conversations. recent months we heard a lot about natural minerals, geopolitical interest, Russian territorial claims, even about Zillinski suit youth, but we didn't hear about people and it's not okay.
We still have no idea what will be with more than 20,000 Ukrainian children illegally deported to Russia, separated with their families put in Russian reeducation camps, told that you are not Ukrainian, you are Russian children, your families, your parents refused from you and you will be adopted by Russian families who will bring you up as Russians.
What will be with thousands and thousands illegally detained civilians, men and women, as well as prisoners of the war who are dying in Russian prisons because they subjected to horrible torture and sexual abuse daily. Part of this people have no chance to be alive till the end of this peace talks. What will be with people who live in Russian occupation? It's not a question of territories. It's not empty spaces.
It's territories with people. Millions of people live there. What will be with them? They live in gray zone. They have no tools how to defend their rights, their freedom, their property, their life, their children, their beloved ones. So I think France and other countries must be vocal about human dimension not let politicians and negotiators to speak only about some abstract things and forget about people and um in your opinion is the European support sufficient and is the idea of an integration of Ukraine in European Union
is geopolitically achievable. When large scale war started, European Union told let's help Ukraine not to fail and Ukraine started to receive the first weapons to be able to defend ourselves and first real sanctions against Russia were introduced into force and we are extremely grateful because it helped us to survive.
You can't fight with the Russians with a bare hands. But it's also an explanation why Ukraine was waiting for a first modern tank for more than a year. Why Ukraine was waiting for a first modern plane for more than three years. Why Ukraine still waiting? What will be with Russian frozen assets, with Taurus rockets, with a lot of other things which I can mention because there is a huge difference between let's help Ukraine not to fail and let's help Ukraine to win.
You see the difference? We can practically measure this difference in type of weapons, speed of sanctions, gravity of decisions. We have no time for discussion. The the time for us converted in numerous death in battlefield, in numerous deaths in occupied territories, in numerous deaths in deep rear. And this is a problem not just for Ukraine because it just Russia who was always proactive.
Russia committed something horrible then presented it like a a comp play and push European Union and the entire international community to reckon with it. So European Union was always reactive. European Union has no strategy and that's why we're just playing in the Putin's rules of the game and that's why we are here in this historical moment when just a week ago Putin openly say said that he's ready to war with Europe he's ready to war with Europe are you ready to defend European Union.
[clears throat] >> Um, we would also uh like to go back on the role of media in information in wartime as we see that declarations of politicians are very important and it also has become one of the most critical dimensions of modern warfare. Having seen it firsthand, to what extent is information manipulated during wartime to influence the population and how has Russian propaganda in Ukraine impacted human rights? >> I know that people start to understand that the war is going on only when the bombs fall on their heads. But war has
not just military but also economic trade cyber valueformational dimension. And when we speak about informationational dimension, it has no limitation in national borders. It's a fight for your hearts and minds. And modern authoritarian regimes, they have no common ideology, but they promote common narratives.
They try to present that dictatorship means um strength and effectiveness and democracy means um weakness and ineffectiveness. They attack humanistic ideas like human rights, accountability of government, freedom of speech, um independent media, uh independent courts. They try to ruin trust between people and destroy their connection with reality and there is no clear solution what to do with it.
Um we have uh to to have the to to develop the complex strategy how uh to return people uh connection with reality uh in Ukraine when the large scale war started Ukrainian government banned Russian channels and Russian social networks but it's temporarily measures because propaganda will find a way how to get to to the audience.
Okay, it will cost more, but Russia has oil and gas. Russia can afford a lot of money to be invested in this uhformational propaganda um machine. So we need some long-term strategies and um let's be honest um I attended a lot of presentation of scientists about cognitive wars about uh fakes about misinformation just with a one goal.
I want to know what the scientist propose as a solution. There is no solution. So let me stop on this. I hope you will invade this solution. And because it's not just problem for Ukraine and not just problem for European Union, we see that around the globe. This is a problem. I'm sure that people who will invent what we will help do to restore connection with reality, these people will receive a Nobel Peace Prize.
And I hope that I will attend this ceremony and also be present. >> And um you have been telling us about the story of Ilia and Marupo and in a conflict war zone where you face permanent danger every day. How can war crimes be documented on a daily basis and most importantly what is the purpose of such documentation? We use uh different source to document work crimes.
Uh we gather testimonies of victims and uh witness. Uh we sent mobiles groups to work on the occupied territories. Uh we uh analyze open data with further verification is it truth or not. Um we live in 21st century and we have a lot of digital tools which provide us an ability to restore what happened to collect evidence to communicate with people in occupied territories to identify perpetrators.
We can't even dream about this digital tools just 30 years ago during the Balkans war. So it's a huge progress. Um the problem is that our legal system is not developed so quickly as new technologies. Um we still have a lot of accountability gaps and still have a question how to introduce into force this beautiful hawk and Geneva conventions and also uh the modern war uh provide more questions which has no just not even legal but no ethical uh answers.
For example, when I was in Kiev uh in the beginning of the war, I refused to evacuate while Russian troops tried to circle my city and with the part of my team, we continue our work on the ground. And this was a war when a line of tanks trying to storm in Kiev. But now it's another type of war. It's a war of drones.
Uh and modern war, it's a war of um unmanned uh systems. uh mass drone attacks, total transparency of battlefield and uh cheap uh and uh quick long range distance weapons and the whole experience of the last century is relevant because it's a war of new type and there are a lot of questions legal questions how to deal with it. Just recently we documented a case in her son region.
It's u more close to Crimea and Russia occupied Crimea and part of her son region and Russians use the tactics with which UN commission on inquiry called drone hunting. They sent drones to hunt civilians just for fun just because they can. And they killed um two years uh old uh baby who was just playing in the garden of his own house. And if you know how to manage drone, you have a clear understanding that that people who navigate it clearly see that this is just a baby two years old and but he killed this baby.
It's going on now but tomorrow such drones um don't need uh be guided by a person. it will be unmanned drones and uh they can tomorrow these drones can fly uh for much more distance than today and if it's now possible in her son why it's not possible in Paris in future so there are a lot of um questions uh which um arise um with this uh development of new technologies and we see that new technologies provide us for one side the tools to document war crimes.
For another side, they became an instrument of crimes. I'm sure that we will uh see not just increasing of numbers of nuclear states. Uh we will see the emergence of robotic armies, the using AI as a weapons of war and new weapons of mass destructions. It can be our future. You're speaking to many students uh young people that belong to the next generation.
They will certainly evolve in a tense geopolitical context. Before taking questions from the public and from the live, is there a final message you want to convey convey to them tonight? >> I'm looking in future with optimism. Despite everything, I don't see the future will be easier, but I know that we can rely on people.
I know that uh civil society back up for the state. We have our Ukrainian example three years ago when large scale war started. I have just mentioned uh that uh I refuse to recreate. So it was very difficult time. I remember that we celebrate each morning like a victory because we managed to stand one more night.
It was a time when not just Putin, all international partners were confident that Ukrainians have no potential to resist to such enormous opposing power because Russia has veto power in security council. Russia has nuclear weapons, strong military potential, 140 million population, oil and gas which means a lot of money.
So I w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w w wed international organizations evacuated their personal even international humanitarian organizations. They left us alone but ordinary people remained and ordinary people started to do extraordinary things. It were ordinary people who helped to survive under artilleries fire.
It were ordinary people who took people out from the ruined cities. It were ordinary people who break through the encirclement to provide humanitarian aid. And suddenly it became obvious that ordinary people fighting for their freedom and human dignity are stronger that even the second army in the world. So dramatic times they are testing us and parallel dramatic times provide us an opportunity to express the best in us to be courageous to fight for freedom to make a difficult but right choices to take burden of responsibility and to help each other. Because only when we
helping each other, when people risking their lives for others whom they never met before, only in that moment we are acutely aware what does it mean to be human. [applause] We'll now take questions from the public. Hi >> [clears throat] >> Hi, thank you for your presence. Uh, I was wondering um about the Nobel Prize and about how much it had changed things for you and for the civil the center for civil liberties.
Uh, and if it had changed anything and if yes, how much? Thank you. >> Frankly speaking, it's not Nobel Peace Prize that changed my life. The large scale war changed my life because everything which we call no normal life was ruined in one moment. Such simple things as a possibility to go to work, to meet with your friends in cafe, to hug your beloved ones, to have family dinners, it's disappeared and crushed for me and for millions of people in Ukraine.
To live during the large scale war mean that you live in total uncertainty. You can't plan not just your day. You can't plan your next several hours. You have no idea what will happen. To live during the large scale war mean that you live in constant fear for your beloved ones because there is no safe place in Ukraine where I can hide from Russian rockets.
So the large scale war changed my life. But Nobel Peace Prize also made some important things because for decades the voice of human rights lawyers from other parts of the globe was unheard. Probably we was heard in UN human rights committee or in OC human dimension meetings but not in the room where political decision were made.
So Nobel Peace Prize opened the door to this rooms. Nobel Peace Prize made our voice tangible. >> Hi. Um, I'm a lawyer myself and so I was really really find you to be an inspiring figure and I'm curious how you think about the role of yourself as a human rights lawyer specifically in um upholding and defending human rights.
It's a good question because I mentioned several time that um I'm in situation when the law doesn't work and it's very um painful frankly speaking. Um just recently I met with five years old girl. We work with a case of her mom but it was occasional meeting in in KEF. Uh I know the case of her mom in details.
Her her mom was a civilian in occupied territories. They lived there and um uh she has pro Ukrainians embassy which is okay for Ukrainian citizens to have love to their country. It's not a crime but under occupation it's prohibited. So she was abducted and illegally detained. She went through the multiple gang grape. So it's very horrible case.
Then she was illegally transported to Russia and now she faced with a fabricated criminal case. It's very widespread situation. So probably the adults who was with this five-year-old girl and po point me u me and um show show me to her and uh told her that I'm important person being a Nobel Peace Prize laurate because uh this five-year-old girl reached me she hugged me she started crying and she started begging me please return my And I feel broken.
I feel literally broken because I'm professional human rights lawyer. I know pretty well UN system, Council of Europe system, OC system, all these legal instruments. But I can't return your mom. So [sighs] we in situation when the law doesn't work and you can have a legitimate question why we are doing legal things in such situation because we believe that it's temporary.
It's not first time in a human history when the law doesn't work. uh for this uh country uh the memories about the second world war it's also was a period when the law doesn't work and human life mean nothing so I hope that with our decisive actions we will manage will manage to return legal order >> hello good evening First of all, thank you so much for taking the time today.
Um, I just wanted to check with you. You say justice um must come before peace. But if the leaders know uh that they will face trial at the end of it, what incentive do they have to negotiate a peace treaty? How do you balance the need for justice with the need to end the war sooner and save some more lives >> in order to end the war sooner and to um and to made peace deal in our situation.
We have not to forget about justice but to make Putin understand that the price of war will be higher for him than the price of peace. So peace deal must include a firm security guarantees to make Putin understand that it's impossible for him to achieve his goal to occupy the whole country and to move further without the security guarantee.
this paper will not work. It will be like our recent experience in 2014 when Ukraine uh when Russia first invaded Ukraine and occupied Crimea and eastern regions. Ukraine has a zero chance to release its territories and people there and we we made two peace deal with Russia which was called a means agreement.
and how Russia used this eight years. Russia transferred Crimea into powerful military base. Russia produced artillery shells, prepare economy for next wave of sanctions, trained their groups and started large scale war. Like I mentioned this before and I will emphasize on it because it's our recent experience that peace deal without security guarantees means nothing for Russians.
But I'm not naive. I don't think that even if it will include security guarantees you can include justice provision. Okay. It's not uh uh not uh need for this. We have to make justice as a parallel track. What do I mean? International criminal court will not stop their investigation regardless of any points in the peace deal.
International criminal court will not uh withdraw arrest warrants. He he don't care about peace deal at all. He care about his work. Now we have to establish special tribunal and aggression and a lot of other international accountability mechanism to make this track parallel to any peace negotiations because international crimes has no statute of limitations.
This means that even if today we have no potential based on the geopolitical landscape to physically persecute this people, tomorrow when the window of opportunity will open, we have always ready. And the history of humankind convincingly proved that authoritarian regime collapsed and their leaders who see themselves untouchable appeared under the court.
In other parts of the globe, the bright example is Milosvich. Serbia didn't want to transfer Milos to the H, but Serbia did. Just recently, the former president of Philippine Duerte was arrested and transferred to the H. If you followed uh this story, you know how confident Derta was that he will never been persecuted. Now he he under he under uh legal procedure of international criminal court.
So our goal is not just to include justice into peace deal. We are not naive. We don't think that Russia will sign any peace deal with justice provision but to establish a parallel justice track to have everything ready when the window of opportunity will emerge. And we Ukrainians, we are very stubborn. We are very stubborn. >> Hi, I'm here.
Uh, thank you so much for an inspiring talk. Um, I wanted to touch on a point you mentioned about the role of the ordinary people in creating peace and perpetuating it. So, I wanted to ask you what is our role? What can we do as youth, as students? uh as average people here and now to hold ourselves accountable and to hold our leaders accountable for peace especially that it seems more and more that our we are becoming desensitized to war there is ongoing genocides all over the place in Sudan in the Middle East uh in Ukraine and everywhere else that we don't hear
about that sometimes we turn a blind eye to so what can we do here and now too. >> Thank you for this question. I'm not in in position to tell you what you must do. First of all, because I'm sure that you know better. You know better what you can do. There are hundreds of methods how to be helpful. You can write about Ukraine.
You can join to some initiatives to provide support of Ukraine. you can organize some uh some advocacy is uh efforts to urge your government to support Ukraine more. So hundreds of different methods. My main message is we need your help. We need your help. It's very difficult to fight with such enormous opposing power.
And sometimes people do nothing only because they think that the war is such existential challenge that I'm a human being. My my efforts are modest. So let's do nothing because we can't stop the war. It's very wrong perception. There is no modest efforts when we speak about war. All effort matter. Let me return to our Ukrainian experience.
12 years ago, we have revolution of dignity. It was a time when millions of Ukrainians stood up their voice against pro-Russian authoritarian corrupt government and they peacefully demonstrated just for a chance to build the country where the rights of everybody are protected, government is accountable, judiciary is independent and police do not beat students who are peacefully demonstrating.
And they paid rather high price for this chance because pro Russian authoritarian government started uh largecale and systematic persecutions of peaceful protesters. I know what I'm talking about because I was coordinator of civil initiative yaidan so we brought up several thousands of people. We work 24hour per day and we provide legal assistance to all prosecuted protesters across the country.
And every day hundreds and hundreds of people who were beaten, arrested, tortured, accused and fabricated criminal cases pass through our care. So it was tough times and we faced with entire authoritarian state machine because paramilitary criminal group Tushki cooperated with police and prosecutors. They cooperated with court.
The former president, security service, uh government, majority of parliament were against peaceful protest. They want to liquidate it even physically. And this feeling of learn helplessness start to emerge because people start to think but we just ordinary people what we can do our efforts modest. We are not God.
And in order to help people to overcome this uh learn helplessness, Ukrainian artists made a beautiful series of posters. And one of them it was poster with a drop and a title. We are drop in the ocean which means that yes we are not God we are human beings and our efforts are modest and probably just with my individual efforts I can't change the situation but without my individual efforts nothing will be changed and even more together we are ocean together we can So my main message, we need your help.
There is no modest efforts when we speak about war. Just think how you can be helpful in this situation and do at least something. Um, thank you so much for your emotional, profound, um, inspiring speech that you talked about. It touched me deeply because we had a talk that I'm from Sudan and my country is uh affected by war and I'm personally kind of disappointed from the international community.
I've been speaking I was working and big initiative with the government with the public sector. So I felt um it's so difficult to change the narrative about Sudan and the war that happened in my country and I feel the same um as you do um since we are in business school and hence that I joined the business school believing that the private sector can have an actual powerful force to change um for peace creating for peace.
uh from your point of view, how you can see that the private sector and the businesses can achieve peace and forward that um to better um perhaps stopping the war or like creating opportunities during the war. I don't know like I just thank you. >> Not easy question to answer because um people are different and um people have different set of values.
probably if you will try to find something universal, I always advise to think not about um development of your business but also about future of your kids because we live in world which is very interconnected. Only spread of freedom makes this world safer. And when the large scale war started, people in Ukraine were affected regardless their social position.
And the money can't save you when the rockets are falling. So this is um not easy um question to answer because it mean that people have to feel their own responsibility. You know that European Union impose sanctions against Russia but a lot of French businesses are still trade with Russia and they say but what's the problem? Russian people need chocolate.
Russian people need some other stuff. Okay. I I can understand that people need something but chocolate is not bread and people are not starving without your products. So it's just um try attempt to find excuse. The truth is that uh French business who steal on sale with Russia they um supported this bloody war because uh the 40% of Russian budget is going on directly to military expenses and this is just only official figures and Russia um can bombard it my native city KF almost daily only because Russia has money to produce and to buy rockets
and drones. Very simple. Very simple. But how I I can explain this to business in France. I there there is no no uh easy explanation because it's just about personal responsibility. It's about personal responsibility. What I think we can do and probably it can be good idea for business school. We can promote the good example of business because we as a human rights lawyer we try to persecute on legal way business who supported bloody dictators.
But probably another side of the coin, we have to popularize the good example to celebrate the good example to invite the business who uh show responsibility to to to give them awards just to show this is a role model. Probably this will also help. You can try at least. >> Um I'm sorry. I know.
Uh first of all, I would like to say um my question would be how do you keep your hope? How do you keep going despite all the pain that you witness every single day? Thank you. It's also not easy question to answer because I'm a human being. First we are human then we are lawyers or businessmen or journalists or steel workers or hairdressers.
So we are human and when you work with human pain daily you have this feeling that this pain is burn you out because um you can't stop this horror. You're trying hard but you can't stop this horror from years to years. It's why a lot of human rights defenders um stop their work on documentation because it's very long marathon to achieve justice.
But what keep me going? Probably um this uh example of dissidence which I mentioned on the beginning answering to your question. When we speak about dissident movement in Soviet Union, it was movement uh which was appeared in 60s and it was crushed. And when we look to this movement through the short-term perspective, we can say that dissident are losers because movement were crushed.
They were marginal. They didn't achieve their goal and they just ruined their life and careers. But because we have a luxury to look to this movement from the distance, we know that we got the chance to restore our independence in ' 90s only because in 60s they were fighting. So this is a bright example that all efforts matter.
Sometimes result is postponed but our future is not just unclear it's also not prewritten. This means that we always have a chance to fight for future which we want for us and for our own children. >> We thank you again for coming tonight and for this very mo moving and inspiring conference. Thank you so much. [applause] >> Thank you very much.