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00:00We can now bring in Sasha Roman Stova, a human rights activist and executive director at the Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize back in 2022.
00:10Sasha, thank you so much for joining us on the program today.
00:13You are here in Paris as part of the People First initiative.
00:17What exactly does this plan aim to accomplish?
00:20Thank you that you are having me here.
00:22And that's a campaign which we launched together with human rights defenders from Russia and from other organizations who supported the idea that negotiation, peaceful negotiation, which now we have, maybe they are not so successful as we want, but they need to have, first of all, first pillow and main discussion.
00:42It's a releasing of people who are suffering at the captivity at the territory of the Russian Federation on control by the Russian Federation because they are occupied.
00:51It's four main groups, which exactly we're trying to put upper at the discussion of this negotiation, the priority.
01:00It's civilian, illegally detained, de facto kidnapped from the territory of Ukraine, and now they are holding them at the Russia jails without any accusation and opportunities exactly have a touch with them.
01:13Relatives of lawyers don't have access.
01:15Second is a situation with prisoners of war.
01:18You know that all of them tortured and they're keeping in such conditions, which exactly Geneva Convention can't even imagine, you know, to ban it.
01:28Fourth group, it's children's.
01:31You know that Ukrainian children's was illegally deported at the territory of the Russian Federation, and they're trying to hide them there.
01:37They're trying to change their names, their death of birth or place of birth.
01:42Just don't give them back to Ukraine and to de facto steal them, you know.
01:48And last one, but not least, it's a group of people which we call political prisoners.
01:52It's civilians and exactly citizens of Russia Federation or Belarus who are trying to pick their voice against the war, against this aggression.
02:04And because of that, they're sitting in the jail.
02:06And a lot of them, same like civilians, they're wounded or they have so bad health conditions that exactly we're afraid that they will not, you know, be alive in the moment when they can be released.
02:20Yes, for now, Ukraine received 200 bodies, dead corpse, people who were in the captivity and not survived in that.
02:30So that's why we want to speak about that.
02:32Now, Sasha, in the past few weeks, we have seen these prisoner exchanges that have happened.
02:36It's an important first step, isn't it?
02:38Absolutely, because we need to understand each person, citizen of Ukraine, will be always accepted from Ukrainian side.
02:46But sometimes we don't know the least till they not go out from their bus.
02:51And when I speak we, I mean whole the Ukrainian society and state.
02:56So Russia Federation now, for example, give us back people whom they're not confirmed at the captivity through the whole of the three years.
03:06So all of these people was missing person and their relatives, its wives, daughters, sisters, a lot of different friends.
03:14They hope that every time when they think that their relatives or beloved forcibly disappeared, that means that just Russia called them in captivity but not confirmed that they are there.
03:29You said that Russia has not been respecting the Geneva Conventions.
03:34Do you talk us through what you have learned from the experiences Ukrainian soldiers have gone through in Russian prisons?
03:42It's not only soldiers, that's a really important point.
03:46Because Russia denied that that's a war, that even soldiers, they don't give the status of war prisoners because through the Geneva Convention, they need to protect the person.
03:58So they don't give any conditions, normal conditions for them, any medicine help.
04:02Some of our soldiers who come back from captivity, they're in so horrible condition of the health that next their rehabilitation takes like three years, five years.
04:15And that pattern started from the beginning of the war in 2014.
04:19So we have still more than 500 people who were kept at the Donbass or Crimea in 2014, 15, 16, and they're still at the jail and Russia don't want to give them back.
04:33And most important, we propose them, different citizens of Russia Federation, mostly military, and Russia show that they're not interested in their own citizens to bring them back.
04:46So that's disproportionate, which we're fighting with, we're trying to put this question, people's lives, at the first level of discussion.
04:57So who are you trying to influence here in Paris, for instance, may I ask?
05:00First of all, France was really active at the question of political prisoning by Russia's side from 2014.
05:08And we really appreciate it, as you remember, that Alek Sinsov, one of the first political prisoners, they was really welcomed by Macron, President Macron.
05:18And they even have a meeting now at Ukraine when Alek comes back from a frontline.
05:24Now he is a part of Ukrainian army.
05:27And that's what happened with common, absolutely common citizens of Ukraine.
05:32You can be a journalist, you can be a volunteer, you can be even, I don't know, dancer at the ballet, but you're going to the frontline because you need to defend your own country.
05:41So we first will speak with sure state representative, administration of president, government and parliament, because National Assembly tomorrow we will have a meeting.
05:51And that's main point that it's diplomatic work, this dialogue and put this question at the first pillow of the negotiation with Russia.
06:03I want to talk about this, this push to diplomacy, because we've seen this since Donald Trump returned to the White House, this push from arming Ukraine to let's talk to Russia.
06:12How do you view this process?
06:14Is it important, even though it's not bearing fruit as quickly as possible?
06:18It's important if we will have, you know, rules for both sides, because now Trump showing the rules exist only for Ukraine side, and that's a problem.
06:29So if we will speak about that, Russia Federation have a sanction, and if we will take out some sanctions, so Russia Federation need to change their behavior for this releasing by sanction.
06:42So that's really important that such countries like France take, you know, take it back in the field of rules, which both sides can be in.
06:53I want to talk about France, because last week we had the French president, Emmanuel Macron, who spoke to Vladimir Putin for the first time in two and a half years.
06:59Last week we also had Europe that has unveiled its 18th round of sanctions against Russia.
07:06We've seen 18, 17 past rounds of sanctions really haven't really influenced Russia's maneuvering in this war.
07:14It still continues to wage a war against Ukraine.
07:17Should European leaders be pushing more towards diplomacy like the Americans to engage with Russia, to shift its strategy, to bring this war to an end now?
07:27It's, sanction, it's a possible field, you know, to have some negotiation, to have some changes, but it's always need to be not given back just without any rules, you know.
07:39So, for example, Russia Federation told that they bring back to Ukraine 6,000 dead corpse bodies of Ukrainian soldiers, and now we receive them and we investigate that most of them are Russian soldiers.
07:54And that's a problem because Russia don't care about even their own citizen body.
07:59They don't have a normal procedure of DNA analysis and figure out who they are, people which they receive at the morgue in the Rostov, not I don't know.
08:07But here it's, it's one of the, it's discussable about sanctions, sanctions exist to have this discussion.
08:16But when you just give them back without any important reasons or without, when Russia not even respect the agreement they told about,
08:25they will send back 120 civilians at this exchange, 1,000 to 1,000, but they receive, not civilians whom they kidnap at the north part of Ukraine,
08:39they receive the civilians.
08:41It's, it's a people who present at the Ukraine and they forcibly transport them from, from occupied territory.
08:48We receive them, sure, because it's our citizen, but they, they trying to, you know, they trying to, cheating even in such things.
08:57So we still need a push, brings back civilians to Ukraine because it's a people with a heart condition and that's a people who even not a part of army of Ukraine.
09:08It's absolutely common people just imagine that it's students, pre-share, it's a mayor of small cities.
09:14So it's a journalist, it's a people who was a leader of community or even common people.
09:21You're also making the push to bring back, to, to free Russian, people who've come out and spoken against the war.
09:28What do you know about, you know, who, who has Russia locked up for, for speaking out?
09:33So here we need to speak about both Russian and Belarusian civilians who exactly trying to rise up their voice inside the Russian and Belarusian society.
09:45And Belarus, it's more than 100, 1,200 people and 200 of them, it's a women.
09:52It's a political reasoning, which exactly Lukashenko started from beginning of his career, but now it's a, it's a horrible situation because all of them tortured and it's, just imagine it's your own citizens.
10:06And when we speak about Russia, that we have a memorial, our co-partners and co-receiver, a Nobel Peace Prize organization who have a, one of department here in France and memorial collect the data about political prisoners in the territory of Russia Federation.
10:22It's a people, sometimes they just wrote something in Facebook or Instagram or, or they just to say something.
10:29I'm, I'm saying no war, not, not something, you know, aggressive or something like Alekh Arlov, head of Human Rights Center of Memorial.
10:40He was attained for, for seven years only because he wrote the article that this war need to be stopped.
10:47I remember in the early days of the war, after Russia's invasion began, there were demonstrations taking place in cities across Russia and one girl got detained and she had a blank piece of paper up.
10:58Absolutely.
10:59I want to talk about the psychological toll this war has taken on Ukraine because we've had multiple reports of how hard it's been for Ukraine to recruit soldiers to, to continue this fight.
11:12Now we have Americans that are stopping the military shipments that were already agreed to under the previous administration.
11:18How far are Ukrainians willing to go to, to continue this fight and will there have to be concessions made at some point?
11:25We need to, understood, we don't have other chance.
11:28We, we exactly need to defend ourselves.
11:32We need different form of defense because this war is a hybrid form.
11:37And, for example, we have missiles and same time we have cyber attack for our state database.
11:44Just imagine that tomorrow your passport don't mean nothing.
11:47Your, I don't know, number of your social insurance, it's just the numbers.
11:53So that's what exactly happened with us.
11:56And when we speak about defending, we mean the, the different, big system, really, really in different level who need to protect us.
12:04Yes, when we speak about mobilized people to the front line, it's happened.
12:09It's a question how we, we don't have a war before 30 years.
12:13So we need to defend ourselves and build new kind of army.
12:18As we know now, we are still not occupied fully by here, Russia.
12:22And I think it's absolutely success.
12:24But when we speak about our form of defending, for example, we have first world cyber war between Russia and Ukraine now.
12:33And a lot of professionals going there, a lot of professionals going to medicine or technical equipment.
12:39As you know, that we have three times less warriors than the Russia army.
12:45But we have much more drones and motivation to create new and new technology.
12:49So if USA will not support us, they continue.
12:54So part of the thing, it's, it's not so easy just to stab this in one moment.
12:58They're continuing with the intelligence.
12:59We will continue to fight because we don't have other choice.
13:03But if we fall, it will be your problem.
13:06But, but we have, for instance, reports today that Russia is claiming to have taken a village in Dnipro, Petrovsk.
13:17Ukraine has not said anything on that front for now.
13:19But we, I've spoken to a military expert last week and he said Russia does have the upper hand on, on the battlefield.
13:25Given that Russia has its upper hand on the battlefield, when it comes to negotiating and sitting down face to face with each other, it's difficult to expect Russia to play by the rules.
13:36So 12 years, we have some negotiation process.
13:40Before that, it's called Minsk.
13:42It's, we have Norman format, which exactly starting here in Paris.
13:47And, and every time Russia trying to show that they take a part in that, but de facto, they're trying to occupy new and new territory of Ukraine.
13:57Until now, they're not occupied even full of the region, except the Crimea.
14:02We need to understand, it's again, it's because we are fighting every day.
14:06We are losing Ukrainian citizens every day.
14:09We are losing not only Ukrainian citizens.
14:11We have in Ukrainian army, we have Azerbaijan, Armenian, Chechen, Georgian, Russian troops.
14:17It's a, it's a people who fighting at the Ukrainian sides.
14:22Sometimes, again, they own state because they are not agree with exactly Russian, Russian meat.
14:28We will fight till the end because we see it before, 300 years before Russia, every time trying to destroy the Ukraine.
14:37We're still alive.
14:38As for me, it's a victory.
14:40It's a, it's a victory.
14:42But we want to have peace and defending.
14:45So that's what we're exactly trying to build.
14:48And we think that much better when nobody attack you.
14:52But if somebody attack you, you need to have this defending from the military, technical, cyber, in any, any pillow, which exactly it's happened.
15:04And even, you know, that Russia push us to make some elections during this attack.
15:11So even this, we're trying to, okay, if we will have an election in the future, we need to start prepared now.
15:16Because, as you understood, we don't have any elections from 2018 and 19.
15:22So that's mean we need to be prepared.
15:24It can be now, but in the future, it's possible.
15:27But you're saying, okay, I asked you about territorial concessions.
15:30You said we'll continue to fight.
15:31But what about concessions like not joining NATO, for instance?
15:37Because the U.S. President Donald Trump has said, and his defense secretary, that Ukraine and NATO is unrealistic.
15:44NATO countries continue to offer Ukraine hope, even though we all know that it's the United States who essentially gives the green light or not.
15:53At one point, would that, if that NATO membership was taken off the table, would that be something that Ukrainians would be able to consider?
16:02Okay.
16:03Ukrainians never dream about NATO before 2022, for your understanding.
16:08We never look at that like realistic scenario in 2022 that we was not first who started to speak about that.
16:14So, about Ukrainian society, I can't speak like official position from Ukrainian politicians.
16:21I can't speak for myself and what I see at Ukrainian society.
16:25So, NATO, not so like, it's not a first point.
16:29First of all, it's defending system, and we see it, our joint of EU main, you know, main goal.
16:36Because EU, that's exactly what we're fighting with.
16:40It's a rule of law.
16:41It's a democracy.
16:42It's a human rights.
16:43That's what the future we want.
16:46Ukrainians, we don't like a fight.
16:48We defend ourselves because we don't have like other choice now, but always better for us, build a business, families, make love, you know.
16:57So, something not exactly, that's not our career, what we see next, I don't know, 50 years, we see our children.
17:05So, that like, you know, dynasty of military.
17:07No, we dream about some conditions, which exactly we can live our peace life.
17:14But other way, we understood that occupation doesn't give any chance of that.
17:19So, when we speak about occupation or joint to NATO, part of us, which we control of territory or something, now Russia received its Armenia potential NATO base.
17:31So, if they're dreaming about that, that they will stop this process of joining of NATO at Ukraine, that's not mean that other country can't join to NATO.
17:42So, as my feelings, joining to NATO, it's not main, like, priority for Ukraine society.
17:52But maybe Ukraine president and government seats, like, much more prioritized.
17:59But EU joining for us, that's prioritized and defending of people.
18:05Because now, the occupied territory without any law, without any security, leave more than 4 million people, like minimum.
18:13We don't have access, so we even can't calculate how many people die in there during this fighting last three years.
18:20But we need to have security for them, first of all, and for all other people.
18:26Now, not exist the city in the Ukraine, which people feel themselves absolutely secure.
18:32We are not normal sleep three years.
18:35We are angry, yes, and we have a reason.
18:39But still, we're trying to be fair to each other, and we're trying to support other countries at an international level,
18:46because we see it, that's our future, cooperation, collaboration, and not what exactly proposed Russia.
18:54Good luck for your meetings here in Paris, and thank you so much for coming in and joining us on the program today, Sasha.
18:59Thank you that you have me.
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