The Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things in Ukraine | Oleksandra Matviichuk | TED

I have traveled here from Kyiv,

where I am a human rights lawyer.

I have been applying the law to defend people and human dignity for many years.

At present, I am in a situation when the law doesn't work.

Russia’s troops are destroying residential buildings, schools, churches,

hospitals and museums.

They’re shooting at the evacuation corridors.

They're torturing people in filtration camps.

They are forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia.

They ban Ukrainian language and culture.

They are abducting, raping,

robbing and killing in the occupied territories.

And the entire UN architecture of international organizations

and treaties can't stop it.

As a human rights lawyer,

I found myself in a weird position.

When someone asks me how to protect people from Russian aggression,

I answer,

"Give Ukraine weapons."

I have one question.

How we people, in the 21st century,

will defend human beings,

their lives, their freedom and their dignity?

Can we rely on the law?

Or does only brutal force matter?

It's important to understand this, not just for people in Ukraine, Iran,

China or Sudan.

The answer to this question determines our common future.

Because this is not just a war between two states.

This is a war between two systems:

authoritarianism and democracy.

Russia wants to convince to the entire world that democracy,

rule of law and human rights are fake values.

Because they couldn’t protect anyone in the war.

Russia wants to convince that a state with a powerful military potential,

a nuclear weapon,

can break international order,

can dictate its rule to the entire international community,

and even forcibly change internationally recognized borders.

And if Russia succeeds,

it will encourage other authoritarian leaders in the world to do the same.

The international system of peace and security doesn't work anymore.

And so democratic governments will be forced to invest their money

not in education, healthcare, culture or business development,

not in solving global problems

like climate change or social inequality,

but in weapons.

We will witness an increase of the number of nuclear states,

the emergence of the robotic armies and new weapons of mass destruction.

If Russia succeeds and this scenario comes true,

we will find ourselves in a world

which will be dangerous for everyone, without any exception.

Unpunished evil grows.

Russian military committed terrible crimes

in Chechnya, Moldova, Georgia, Mali, Syria, Libya,

other countries of the world.

They have never been punished.

They believe they can do whatever they want.

I've talked to hundreds of people who survived Russian captivity.

They told me how they were beaten,

raped, packed into wooden boxes,

electrically shocked through their genitalia,

and their fingers were cut,

their nails were turned away,

their knees were drilled,

they were compelled to write with their own blood.

One woman told me how her eye was dug out with a spoon.

There is no legitimate purpose for doing this.

There is also no military necessity in it.

Russians did these horrible things only because they could.

Because for now, the law doesn't work.

Although, I trust that it’s temporary.

The war turned people into numbers.

Because the scale of war crimes grows so large,

that it becomes impossible to recognize all the stories.

But I will tell you one.

This is a story of 62-year-old civilian Oleksandr Shelipov.

He was killed by the Russian military near his own house.

This tragedy received a huge media coverage

only because it was the first court trial after the February 24.

In the court,

his wife Kateryna shared

that her husband was an ordinary farmer.

But he was her whole universe.

And now she lost everything.

People are not numbers.

We must ensure justice for all,

regardless who the victims are, their social position,

the type and level of cruelty they endured,

and if international organizations or media are interested in their case.

It's possible.

New technologies allow us to document war crimes

in a way we couldn't even dream of 15 years ago.

The experience of Bellingcat

and other investigators convincingly proved

that we can restore what was happening,

even without being on the spot.

People are not numbers.

We must return people their names.

Because the life of each person matters.

But we still look at the world through the lens of the Nuremberg trials,

when Nazi war criminals were tried only after the Nazi regime had collapsed.

But we are living in a new century.

Justice shouldn't be dependent on how and when this war will end.

We cannot wait.

The global approach to war crime justice needs to be changed.

We must establish a special tribunal now

and hold Putin, Lukashenko and other war criminals accountable.

(Applause)

Yes, this is a courageous step.

But we must do it

because this is the right thing to do.

I have been working with the law for many years,

and I know for sure

when you can't rely on legal mechanisms,

you can still rely, and always rely on people.

We are used to thinking in categories of states and interstate organizations,

but ordinary people have much more impact than they can even imagine.

Immediately after the invasion,

international organizations evacuated their personnel.

So it was ordinary people who supported those in the combat zone.

Who took people out from the ruined cities.

Who helped to survive under artillery fire.

Who rescued people trapped under the rubble of residential buildings.

Who broke through the encirclement to provide humanitarian aid.

Ordinary people started to do extraordinary things.

And then

it became obvious that ordinary people fighting for their freedom

are stronger than even the second army in the world.

(Applause)

That the ordinary people,

at mass mobilization of ordinary people in different countries,

can change the world history quicker than the UN intervention.

People in Ukraine survived also because of you.

When ordinary people in different countries started to support us.

Someone is collecting donations.

Someone is writing about what is happening.

Someone is holding rallies,

demanding their governments to supply Ukraine with weapons.

Someone closed its own business in Russia because freedom is worth it.

Be that someone.

(Applause)

Support our struggle.

Make our voice tangible.

Take an active position, not just oppose.

There are so many things which have no limitation in state borders.

Freedom is one of such things

as well as human solidarity.

When full-scale invasion started,

the democratic countries said, "Let's help Ukraine not to fail."

But we must instead think about helping Ukraine to win.

There is a huge difference between "Let's help Ukraine not to fail"

and "Let's help Ukraine to win fast."

(Applause)

Democracies have to win wars

because only the spread of freedom makes our world safer.

And this is not about Ukraine laying down its arms.

People in Ukraine want peace more than anyone else.

But peace doesn't come

when the country which was invaded stops fighting.

That's not peace.

That's occupation.

(Applause)

And occupation, just another form of war.

Occupation is not about changing one state flag to another.

Occupation means

torture, sexual violence, enforced disappearances,

denial of your identity,

forcible adoption of your own children,

filtration camps and mass graves.

I would never wish anyone to go through this experience.

But these dramatic times

provide us an opportunity to reveal the best in us.

To be courageous, to fight for freedom,

to take a burden of responsibility.

To make difficult but right choices.

And to help each other.

Now, like never before,

we are acutely aware of what does it mean to be a human.

And we have no time.

Time for us [is converted into] death.

After all,

you don't need to be Ukrainian to support freedom and Ukraine.

You just need to be a human.

Thank you.

(Applause)