War in Ukraine: ‘Eventually there will be justice,’ Amnesty International head says • FRANCE 24

War in Ukraine: ‘Eventually there will be justice,’ Amnesty International head says • FRANCE 24

now it’s time for today’s perspective and first let’s bring you the latest news on the war in Ukraine russian forces have widened the front line in Ukraine’s northern region of Sunumi as it continues its slow advance capturing another village on Tuesday the advance bringing the region’s capital closer to within the range of frontline drones advance as well as Kev has showed its ability to continue fighting by conducting a series of strikes in recent days hitting Russian strategic bombers and the Crimea Bridge well amid the war NOS’s and charitable organizations trying to work to ensure that human rights are upheld by both sides but can you do that amid an ongoing war well Veronica Vel has just been appointed in the last month or so as new director of Amnesty International in Ukraine and she joins us now from Ke thanks very much for being with us on the program it’s a new role for you isn’t it you’ve been in the job as I say just over a month now um what do you see as Amnesty’s role if you like in Ukraine um hello Stuart it’s a great to see you and it’s a pleasure to be here um I I’ve been in this role a little bit more than that time uh but definitely it’s a new role and as you know it’s very hard uh and it’s very unprecedented situation when authoritarian regime basically invades democratic regime uh the regime where nuclear weapon is invading democratic regime with that voluntarily gave up uh nuclear weapon to secure the peace in the world and stability and of course uh Ukraine is getting a lot of help and support and everything uh for the you know this fair tradeoff for to remain the de democratic country with a strong rule of law but of course it doesn’t come you know as a granted as a gift to us and we have to make sure that also you know Ukrainian government and all the war procedures and you know the conduct of doing the war uh would be met from this side as well the same as you know we are talking about the conditions for uh those people who live in Ukraine and everyone um should have the opportunity to to to live um you know uh in as democratic country as possible under the severe conditions under the martial law and other restrictions that we have here but no doubts that main accent and uh of our work would be focused on the war crimes would be focused on all the brutalities and cruelties committed uh by Russia and Russian soldiers on the Ukrainian soul against Ukrainian civilians and is that um really realistically possible while there’s a war going on i mean are you able for example to have access to where you need to go to enable to document that as far as we could do this you know uh we have unprecedented situation for example where the Russian troops would pull off and um you know that we could talk to the victims we know the situation where people living occupied territories that been under occupation even for short amount of time and they try to rejoin their goal citizens uh on other uh territories that controlled by Ukrainian government we can conduct those interviews we can talk to the family members who have people in captivity we can talk to the people who have been just released from um as a prisoners of war civilian detainees and collect all of this and it’s tremendously hard of course and uh individual risk is involved here and of course you have to go through the special permission and usually also Ukrainian government is trying to be helpful in many ways uh for us uh in order to complete our work but of course the individual’s risk is always always in place and um you know the people who are making the choice to go to document to talk um they they under this pressure of doing so but you know it’s crucially important to do this type of work even if it looks very meaningless right now and I know there’s many skepticism around the work that human rights organization or international organization are doing here because war is ongoing no one’s know it’s going to be end but you know eventually there still would be justice at the end and we strongly believe in this because otherwise we would not be able to restore the peace in the world peace in Europe the stable peace you know for for for the generations to come and I always say that if it’s going to happen and we will have this trial or wherever how it’s going to look like we have to how we going to show up there was a big you know bucket of tears or it’s going to be you know the evidence-based cases that where we could be able to keep those who committed those crimes accountable you’re there in Ke I mean you’re there in Ke presumably it’s one thing to be able to or to try to uh investigate um cases that you hear of from the Ukrain from the Russian side but can you do that the other way round as well do you come across cases where Ukrainian forces have perhaps overstepped them up i would tell for example we try to be you know impartial as as much as possible and of course when we do our research uh you know that the part of our work is is is to make sure for example that if we are calling uh Russia uh to follow the Geneva Convention because as we all know war is as as a fact uh is not prohibited by the international law people can can make war they can be aggressive to each other and they could do this but they have to follow certain rules and those rules of the war they exist for the reason and all they are you know in Geneva convention and for example recently we work on the prisoners of war condition uh big research and everything so uh we what we what we did and what we try to do all the time on a regular basis is to visit uh the Russian prisoners camp uh Russian prisoners of war camps there is many of those mostly in western Ukraine and you know we interview uh the those prisoners we try to understand the condition we try to monitor what the condition what kind of food people consume uh if they have you know access to the um to the information if they could be so all that’s components are equally important to us uh because otherwise we would not distinguish the difference right and the kind of things that you discover as as you go along do you get reactions as you go along for example you you were talking there about visiting Ukrainian uh prisoners in in Russian camps I mean if you start saying well why are these people not getting proper food will you immediately get any kind of reaction from the Russians it would get get zero reaction from Russians usually uh and it’s not only about Amnesty International it’s about many organizations it’s about even international cross that experience uh big problems uh with accessing to Ukrainians prisoners of war almost for example every single family member or prisoners of war admitted that for example Ukra that the only one organization in the world that has a mandate for example to visit prisoners of war uh for example if we talk about Russia by the official mandate it would be international red cross but from what we know uh Russian side is really not cooperative in that way and uh in many cases people not getting visited they’re not getting any information or something so you know if we have one side that completely you know disrespecting the international law disrespecting uh the Geneva Convention disrespecting the rule of law uh we are not going to get what we have to do but we have to monitor we have to make a call we have a great cases for example when uh the members of Saudi uh Arabia was you know aware of the cases of people being tortured or starving uh in the prison in Russia Ukrainian prisoners I’m talking right now and you know and that labor camps on that colony’s conditions improved uh and we have our you know prisoners uh who were uh who’ve been released reporting about this so we know that individual efforts matters we also have our activists who are trying to reach out through the with the information through their own embassies ambassadors who are based in Russia because uh once we starting to get information uh the condition improves overall but in general of course Russian authority is completely uh disrespectful to the international law and any conditions i mean from what you’re saying you do see from what you’re seeing you do see a real difference then to the way Ukraine is going about this war to the way Russia is going about this war of course it’s that’s a profound difference you know and the profound difference is you know I always uh try to explain why even for example rule of of making the war exist you know we do not want to have war at all but when the war exists we have Geneva convention and that Geneva convention exists that people would treat each other as a humans they would not humiliate they would not torture then if the moment of ending them up or grieving upon you know peace or something will come at least we will have this uh hum humanian phase to approach that conversation but right now three and a half years we see you know the Russian side executing Ukrainian prisoners on a camera being like torturing them and everything else so uh it’s very hard to approach because there’s so much hatred has been uh caused by this and of course Ukraine is trying to create all the conditions and you know I would not exclude that you know incidents and everything happen and all that cases should be probably you know investigated properly and everything I would never say 100% that everything is always clear from both but uh in general conditions are met when we talk about uh Geneva Convention and uh the the the art of doing the war or those conditions that uh been established in Geneva good to talk to you on the program today thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us veronica she’s director of Amnesty International in Ukraine joining us from Ke thank you very much

The head of Amnesty International in Ukraine has spoken to FRANCE 24 about the vital importance of the independent investigation of crimes committed during the Russian full-scale invasion. Veronika Velch told us that it is crucial to do this work, even if it may appear meaningless right now. She says that there is a profound difference between the way Russia is carrying out the war, and the way Ukraine is defending itself. Velch says that eventually there will be justice, because otherwise peace cannot be restored for the generations to come. She spoke to us in Perspective.
#Ukraine #AmnestyInternational #warcrimes

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