the makers of these decisions, what cannot be done , we conduct a test, for example, when we talk about freedom of speech, there is a three-step test that is used in practice, for example, the european court of human rights, it talks about three components: whether there is a legitimate goal, and here they will say yes, it is, it is a war, it is a security consideration, are these limitations of the protection of this goal and the last, extremely important and component of this text achieved, or not? these restrictions are needed in a democratic society, and here quite often this proportionality, yes, the state can pull a blanket over himself, but no more than necessary, even in war conditions, it just fails, here it is very important to realize how fundamentally we are now in a situation, if you will, of selective law, and how society perceives it, because by and large, we talked about it even before the war. that of course there

the state can adopt some measures, very often those that do not correspond to the current legislation of the constitution, against people we do not like, obviously, and this is a very dangerous thing, and i always, as a human rights activist i remind you that even those people who support it, saying it's a war and we have to use whatever methods, they think they're using those methods against what they call the enemy, they don't... understand that if you break the rules of the game, then tomorrow these methods will be used against you. well, the question arises, how to explain this to a society that is already so traumatized by this long war and the realization that, relatively speaking, the dictatorship that is opposite, it is very often effective precisely because it does not care about any right, and she can change the law, change the constitution, ban everything, i would say patience is necessary, but here i will add some for sure...

a lot of love for the people who will come to you in the comments, who will find you are on social networks and they will start writing to you that you are not in the trenches, that you are a human rights defender, that you are wearing your rose-colored glasses, well, this is the mildest of what i actually read when i wrote about such violations, which appear to me even during the war, disproportionate and threatening, well, on the other hand, the incidence is understandable, but... there is another side of the coin that creates such obvious problems for human rights activities, which is that the very logic of war, it somehow calls into question our usual norms by which we treat human rights, and here, even , if we are not talking about the russian-ukrainian war, but more broadly, we see how human rights organizations are now condemning the israeli army, israeli security forces for actions in the gas sector, demonstrations. the reports, the calls for no

military support that are being made in the united states, i can just quote senator bernie sanders, who says: "no, we are not against the state of israel, we are not anti-semitic, we are just talking about the fact that you violate human rights, but at the same time there is a need to destroy terrorism there, to fight terrorist organizations there, and the very activity power structures, when they do this, and this also applies when we act there, say, in the de-occupied territories and fight with the occupied territories, it actually undermines the human rights we are used to, and what to do about it? it is difficult to speak in broad strokes here, because rights protection approach person, it requires an analysis of each specific case, that is, each specific case, to what extent during the war both international human rights law, yes...

international humanitarian law, to what extent these two fields, superimposed on this specific example, on the specific context, come into force , they say there that the actions of this or that state correspond to these norms or not, because unfortunately, during the war, people die, civilians die, eh, and here is this proportionality, it, we just talked about freedom of speech, she is also present here, and it protects the civilian population, and it establishes... norms and rules for waging wars and protecting one's legitimate interests, therefore one must go into each case, and not try to dissect it with broad strokes, although i, on the other hand, say this and catch myself thinking, that when i talk about the russian federation, i just use broad strokes, but we have factual confirmation for these broad strokes, we have a database in public organizations in which we have documented 70,000 episodes of war crimes. in just two years throughout

territory of ukraine, and i can definitely, using these facts, in broad strokes, say that this is a deliberate policy of the russian state, to use war crimes. that these are not some excesses of specific actors or some army unit, that this is the method by which russia is trying to win this war by inflicting pain on civilians and breaking their resistance. well, russia itself, when you talk to your foreign colleagues, does it not seem to you that it has followed this palestinian path, relatively speaking, when it replaces the aggressor and the victims, it says that otrosi ukraine commits crimes against the civilian population there. the ukrainian army is being conducted this way and that, but we see how the suffering of the people in the belgorod region is shown there, as if it were simple, well, by chance, they got into this situation, that ukraine wants to destroy the peaceful territory of russia there, as it used to be with

the donbass, yes it's with this meme, what did you do for 8 years, when ukraine bombed donbas, it was heard not only in russia itself, it was always discussed in the right-wing environment as well, i just returned from a very... long trip to the united states of america, and i saw how widespread the narrative is that ukraine persecutes christians, well, here is a good example, and to be honest, that is, this statement by meijer was not accidental, it is not accidental, and unfortunately, it is not, not only she thinks so, many are convinced that ukraine persecutes christians, and you know, there is a special cynicism in that, because we have been documenting in... crimes for 10 years, of course, a full-scale war is a completely different scale, intensity, but the trend was clear , since 2014, russia considers freedom of religion exclusively as a collective category, there should be only one church, or loyal churches, for example, this is

the transformation and taking control of the muftiyat on the crimean peninsula, and all other churches, denominations, religious organizations, as their leadership. so are their believers, they are persecuted, and all that we recorded during these 10 years, i heard all this, as if ukraine is doing it, kidnapping, killing and torturing priests in the occupied territories, and i, when i heard it, i was just telling about these cases that i documented personally, for example, i said what protestant pastor oleksandr khomchenko told me, i mentioned the abduction. a month ago, stepan podolchak from the village of kalanchak, kherson region, but to be honest, i am really thinking about what to do with it, because our votes, they are single, and russia used a powerful machine, hired lobbyists in

the same washington, they bypassed all the congressmen and told how ukraine is being persecuted, the ukrainian orthodox church of the moscow patriarchate, first of all, as an organization that is being persecuted. mean that when you speak as an average american, they do not make a distinction, for them there are christians, and they do not know whether it is the moscow church or some other, and these christians are persecuted by russia, and how they package it for specific congressmen, then this is a question, on to which i do not know the answer, well, in the united states there is an american orthodox church, which is recognized by the russian orthodox church as autocephalous, although no one else... recognizes, practically in the world orthodoxy, but this is a whole organization, which again representatives can go to congressmen, to representatives of local legislative bodies, tell about all this suffering, this is a whole church, but the situation, the situation is more complicated, even evangelical churches, which

are persecuted by russia in the occupied territories, they believe that ukraine is persecuting christians, and with something must be done about this, because this is the narrative that is being actively ... promoted and used, including to prevent ukraine from receiving the support we expect from the united states of america. and in general, how are you? have you felt that public opinion has changed during this time? i felt that people, and this is quite typical and natural, are already thinking about other things than the russian war in ukraine, and i felt, and this was, by the way, a surprise for me, because i was on such a tour. at the invitation of seven american universities, that is, in different parts of the country, that we still have a huge reserve of empathy, because wherever i spoke, it was always a very warm reception, people responded to what i told, well , actually human pain, he has no boundaries, it

very clear stories, and i came to the conclusion that if someone in america constantly had a focus on this, then it would be much easier for us, because... people, they are not indifferent, they are just busy with a thousand other things that parallel in are happening in the world. as far as in principle what we should do to maintain this interest, first of all connected. because what you say, empathy is understandable, but the level of interest, it is also very important, we see it in the columns of the world media, the middle east, in the center of events for 200 days in a row, well, this is a strategic region for the united states, and that’s understandable, and that’s understandable, ukraine, it’s not the only part of the world where tragedies are happening, where people are suffering, that is, there is a lot going on in syria, which is also being talked about . of the world press, in sudan, in iran, well, that is, there are various points that needed respect,

and our question is how, despite this change of attention, to ensure our interests, because it is difficult to fight such a powerful military force as russia without international help, and if we the west says that you fight not only for yourself, well, accordingly, i wanted it to be always confirmed not just with words, but with concrete actions. therefore, i have such a simplified answer to your difficult question, it seems to me that if russia is moving into the stage of a long, exhausting war, then we need to move to a long-term strategy, we need to build communities in these countries, and this is where we have to start, in we are 7.5 or i don't know how many millions of ukrainian refugees now, we have a super active diaspora that became active after the 22nd. year, we have artistic circles, human rights circles,

we need to expand these communities so that they are not purely ukrainians or people of ukrainian origin, and constantly involve these people in some actions, that is, we need to start work on building such an international network, if russia builds on money, on propaganda, on some corrupt connections. or on political influence, we need to build it on values ​​and on such very basic things as human solidarity and empathy and a sense of personal responsibility for everything that happens in the world. but after this story with the termination of consular services to military men, will there not be cracks in the diaspora itself? it is obvious that they will go, it seems to me that, in general, this question of mobilization is very ... complicated, and different parts of ukrainian society have different interests in this regard, and here

the ukrainian state looks like this from the side to me, it takes mutually contradictory steps, on the one hand, it seems to emasculate this draft law, not to and not to these norms, which demanded that the part of society that fights against this law disappear, on the other hand a completely different signal. what are we going to do now for those ukrainians who are abroad, maybe this is not a struggle for mobilization for justice, it is simply a different, different, different struggle, well, in any case, it should have some real implementation mechanisms, and this is what it looks like , that these are different conflicting signals, and it's hard for me to understand what our government policy is on mobilization, again, i'm not a military expert, i can look at it only from a human rights point of view, but going back to your question, i think that despite all this, a huge number of people

abroad understand that this is a war for survival and feel a responsibility to ensure that their country survives, even at that time , when they are safe abroad, they do something. in every state, i meet such people who tell me how many charity actions they have done, how they have carried something themselves, how they carry out some kind of information work. there should be more of these people, but not less, which means that they have to campaign to get other people involved in this work, and not just rely solely on their own strength. we have already used the word survival several times in our conversation, and here is an important point that we had the impression, at least after the maidan of 2013-14, that the entire 20th . in the 20th century, we are moving to such values ​​of the civilized world, which have

a completely different attitude to human life demand solidarity, mutual understanding, respect for the state and the state's respect for the person, and now we again, it is logical, after the beginning of this great war , moved to the value of survival, as far as it affects human rights in general and the perspective of perception by the citizens themselves human rights as values. this affects a lot, because war is poison, war is poison not only for ukrainian society, for any society, in my time, studying at tenfer university, i specially took a course. on wars and about international settlement in order to understand these patterns and be ready for what awaits us, both during the war and after the war ends, however it ends, and it is quite difficult to hold on to this framework of freedom and democracy , human rights,

when survival instincts come to the fore, and it's... of course, it's not a fault, it's just a context in which a responsible person has to rely even more on self-reflection, and just every day, taking a thousand decisions, remembering what we are fighting for is difficult, but what gives me optimism is the fact that when you open any research over all these years regarding ukrainians and... values, ukrainians always put freedom first in the hierarchy of values, the perception of freedom, it generally involves duty, but right here it is important to understand whether freedom is a tool for building a civilized country, or freedom is an element for an anarchic perception of oneself and the state and oneself in the state, this is a very

correct question, because freedom and will, you know, it's so obvious, and different categories, that's right just like someone... told me that we were all on the maidan, but everyone stood on the maidan for their own, well, that is, for their own idea, and uh, it's true, uh, it's true, it needs even deeper research, because, if for me freedom is the opportunity to take responsibility for my actions, i.e. for me it is responsibility and freedom are equivalent concepts, i.e. i do not transfer responsibility for my life to someone else, i am able myself, i have the freedom to take responsibility for it , then for... oh freedom, i, for example, is often used to explain to western societies the problems that are already happening in them, i say, it is the opportunity to choose between different cheeses in the supermarket, this is freedom, freedom of choice, i just went to the supermarket, chose different cheeses, here i am a free person, i can choose cheeses for myself, and that's how i see it, well, that's how freedom was perceived in soviet society, there weren't

several types of cheese, and those who have access to products were considered free, obviously, and now western ones. societies that have absolutely no idea what it's like not to have a choice of cheese, sees freedom, this is how it is as a requirement for the state to secure their comfort zone, and that is why it is so difficult to explain now, this is me again linking to our situation, that if ukraine does not stop russia, then russia will go further, and they will be forced to leave the zone comfort, and all this help we receive, and for which we are of course grateful. because nothing is guaranteed in the world, no one is obliged to provide this help, but it is not just help, it is an investment in their own security, well here it is still important for us to understand how to prevent degradation from such an understanding freedom in society, because you know, i remember very well the russian society of the 90s there , and by and large, at least in

the big cities that were the centers of the country there, like moscow or st. petersburg, the level of freedom.. . there is freedom and responsibility for many people was much higher than in ukrainian society, then we saw 100 thousand rallies there in defense of a free lithuania, or people even went to demonstrations against the war in chechnya, and there was a huge number of people who voted by liberal political forces, it was not the majority, maybe, but it was millions of people all over the country, and now these people are simply gone, we can see even now. that the majority of russians in general would like the country to be communist, their number grows every year, sympathy for stalin grows every year, that is, from the society that i observed as a society that seems to gravitate towards freedom, only memories remain, it is possible to write memoirs, but also to remember the poor rights activists, by the way, who are practically all their lives

they bet on this society to be the way they want it to be... they dreamed of making compromises with the authorities, remember how lyudmila aleksieva was, nothing came of it, just nothing at all. this is a very important point for me: how can we prevent such opportunities in our country? i don't have a simple answer, but i will try to tell my vision: this is how society can really become rigid very quickly, because what i see and observe in russian society is a rapid barbarization, that is , the whole thin layer of culture in the form of doto. vskoi ballet and so on, it, it simply overlaps with these patterns of behavior that we see on the ukrainian territory, which were brought here forcibly by the russian military, if for someone... "russian culture is a conditional tchaikovsky, perhaps with his ukrainian roots, then for for me this is bucha, this is russian culture, this is what we saw there, these dead

bodies of people lying on the streets, and with their hands often tied behind their backs, until the moment of their release, this is russian culture for me, well, in german culture during during the second world war, there were auschwitz and babeniar, absolutely, and there is a difference between german and russian culture, but your question was not about that, so i..." first i will answer it: the responsibility lies with people who understand the threat, with the ukrainian intelligentsia on ukrainian civil society, because the minority determines the vector in which the country will move and develop, and therefore it is important that this minority is organized, that it articulates its messages and that it speaks in different languages ​​about the same thing, which even under time genocidal war of...extermination, we must remember that we are fighting to remain a free society, and that challenge is twofold, and that this war did not begin in february 22, as the world thinks, in february

14 , when for the first time we got a chance to build such a free society, well, right here it is very important, there is also the attitude of the state and society towards this particular person, you understand, something that we have not seen by and large very often, even since 200 there in 2014 , when it came to... about forced migrants, even not only from the outside of the state, but also from the side of society, do you remember these suspicious views of people who were forced to leave crimea and donbas because they did not want to live under occupation. well, we as a society need to grow up rapidly, and for me one of the signs of growing up is self-reflection. this is when you don't just feel your emotions and think that you have the right to do whatever you want. be traumatized or angry or something, and when you try to rationalize them as an adult, and yes, you are entitled to all emotions, but even

all these emotions that we all feel during war, you have to make balanced decisions that have a positive effect not only in the short term, but in the long term. i never mention it in the international arena, but i always remind it at meetings with the ukrainian audience. the war in syria started a long time ago, and the ukrainians, they were also not the kind who went to sleep thinking about the poor syrians and woke up thinking about the poor syrians, that's me before, when we talk about the indifference of the world, we have to remember ourselves, and i still i remember, since i have been involved in human rights protection since 2007, about a huge scandal when the issue of construction was simply discussed in ukraine. well, some kind of shelter for syrian adults, and ukrainians, well, people in this area said: no, no, no, we don't want anyone, and i will not be surprised that some of these

people may also have become refugees and received a warm shelter in other countries, which we once denied to the same people who fled from war, so self-reflection is a very important ability of adult society, well , you understand, honestly... is it for every person capable of self-reflection, a lot depends on government policy here, frankly, again on the media, because asking every person to engage in self-reflection, or in a period of, you know, survival, when you need to solve a million problems at once, when money becomes less, and the children have to be fed to school, driven to the man who is in the army to collect help for this man himself. or work too hard to feed the family in a changing economic environment, it's about survival again, yes, so we won't be able to all to say, you have to, you know, reflect and

understand the situation, it depends on the extent to which states and society are able to respond to the challenge, you know, i'm just not demanding, i'm reminding, and i say and you always act based on the fact that that i do not transfer my responsibility to the state, i am not a public servant, i am not a politician, and... i have great respect for the work of journalists, i understand the role of the media in a free society, but i also know that people have a lot of power, i i appeal to people with a reminder that it should be done, and who is capable of it, even in the conditions of those that have developed when, when the truth is that society is sick, when society is tired, when we go to bed and do not know what awaits us in the morning, and the first thing we do is check, and what is the night happened, because even if your city in kyiv was not shelled, yes, that does not mean that other cities were not harmed that night, even in

such... i remind you that we have before ourselves, not before someone else, and to oneself, this is such a moral, i would say, duty to reflect on this situation as much as it seems possible to us, well, people always they also perceive the protection of human rights and responsibility for crimes against humanity as some kind of effective tool, remember the one that was in ukraine, one might say, even joy, when a warrant was issued for the arrest of vladimir putin. this is important, i can explain, it is important not only from a legal point of view, in the long term, if putin lives, yes, he will be in trouble, in the sense that authoritarian regimes fall and their leaders, who thought themselves untouchable, are brought to justice . we have, not all, to be honest, not all, but we have examples, we have examples of milosevic, whom serbia did not want

to hand over to the hague, but serbia was. forced, that is, we do not know what the future will be, but with this warrant we are trying to construct the version of the future that we need, but even in the short term it is super important, and here it is not even the legal consequences, but other consequences that matter. i travel a lot now to different countries of the world, i meet with presidents, with members of the government, with parliamentarians, journalists, there with various audiences, and i know, and everyone in ukraine knows, that there are politicians, even in the western... in the world and not only orban, who would like to return to the so-called business as usual was yours, and here is this legal decision, this order for arrest, he puts up a barrier for them, because maybe orban can shake putin's hand in beijing, but already a person who declares his commitment to democracy and whose voters follow this, well, he already understands that if he shakes the hand of the biggest

a kidnapper in the world. children, well, he will get rid of his careers in this society, that is, there are still such short-term consequences that are super important for us. and tell me, hatred for putin is an understandable thing, absolutely, but in principle, one way or another, during the war, society lives in this category of hatred, there is no other way. you yourself mentioned about budcha, what emotions it arouses in people, it arouses hatred for those who did it, for the country, for the citizens of this country, who... are able not to notice it, and how to get out of this hatred, that is also an important thing, remember how during during the second world war, there was a famous article by ilya orenburg, kill a german, ugh, and at the end of the war, even the soviet leadership was forced to try to move away from this article and then it was never republished, i read this article in the orenburg collection published in

1942. it was impossible anywhere, i think, that when you are on the battlefield, this thinking is biphasic, that is, which is very much has only two colors, black and white, it is necessary because you are trying to survive, because on the battlefield, if you do not quickly understand where your enemy is, well, you just will kill, that's why when you look, what's on a russian soldier is following you, you don't have the luxury of thinking, but... he is fooled by russian propaganda, or maybe he has three children, or maybe he is a beautiful person and an outstanding musician, well , if you think like that, he will kill you there is, because this is the battlefield, and this is the logic, it is justified there, and much that is justified on the battlefield, it cannot be automatically transferred to the rear, because hatred is a very complex feeling, as an emotion that needs output, you ask me, what to do with it? well,

i'm not a psychologist, it's difficult for me to answer professionally, i know only two things: first, that the same commander-in-chief of the upa, roman shukhevich, said that we fight not because we hate those who are in front of us, but because we love those who are behind us, and the second thing is that i already see how this hatred in the rear, how people who cannot reach the russians, they are not on the battlefield, they begin to pour out... to those whom they can reach, that is, to themselves, and i i can already see how this hatred, which is being cultivated, is fragmenting ukrainian society, and it seems to me that we in the rear, if we are not already in the trenches, should be kinder to each other, because everyone is sick, everyone is tired, you do not see how the war was fought with a person and how your word can hit this person, instead we watching...