Ukraine Tribunal 2023
February 20th - February 24th 2023
Spanish Court, The Hague
Oleksandra Matviichuk - Testimony
Prosecutor Drew White KC: So if it please the court, the prosecution is prepared to call the first witness today … Ms. Oleksandra Matviichuk
Judge Zak Yacoob: Thank you. Tell me when the witness is ready to take the oath. Prosecutor: The witnesses at the witness bench your honor
Judge Zak Yacoob: Thank you very much good morning Mr. witness good morning thank you for coming here just say yes if you agree with me
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes, that uh no not yet, not yet let me say what you are agreeing to do you solemnly declare that the evidence you will be giving in this case the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes
Judge Zak Yacoob: Please proceed
Prosecutor: Thank you Mr. President now Ms. Matviichuk I understand that we have a timing issue with respect to your testimony so we're going to try and go through the questions that I have with you over the course of the next 20 minutes or so at which point I plan
to turn you over to uh questioning by the judges and we will endeavor to finish your testimony uh just before 11 A.M this morning so just under one hour so by 10 50 we should be finished. So you are a Ukrainian citizen born in Kiev?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes
Prosecutor: and your educational background is that you're trained as a lawyer and received the LLM degree in 2007.
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes, correct
Prosecutor: You're currently the head of the non-profit Center for civil liberties that is headquartered in Kiev?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes
Prosecutor: And how long have you been the head of that Center since the beginning of creation of the organization from 2007.
Oleksandra Matviichuk: So it was established in 2007 what was the purpose of establishing it at that time that time Ukraine was a with example of positive Trends on Democratic Transformations and human rights Defenders and Helsinki committees from the OEC regions decided that they have to establish a human rights organization in Kiev who will work not only for Ukrainian benefit in democratization but also will be actively involved in international level to promote human dignity and human rights in OEC region
Prosecutor: As the head of that Center what are your duties? What are the sort of things that you're required to do is it purely administrative or are they any substantive duties, are there any duties of analysis what can you in summary what do you do?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: My duties they transferred because the organization become gross and we started as a small organization in 2007 and for that moment I fulfill different duties not just administrative but also some Executive also analysis
and we start started with mostly educational program but then later we developed a very like a sustainable institutions and we have different state statute bodies which is responsible for different actions and according our statute and for current moment I am as a head of organization responsible for developing the strategy
and fulfilling the strategy which is adopted by the general assembly of our organization Prosecutor: I understand that the center has recently received some accolades or Awards uh can you explain that oh we um was avoided by different words uh since uh two to zero fifteen when I received the award from missions of OIC it was called a democracy Defender awards for our work during the revolution of dignity because we provided legal assistance to the whole prosecuted protesters during the revolution of dignity and the last and the most prominent award which our organization received it was last year and it was the Nobel Peace Prize.
Prosecutor: Now I understand that a significant part of the operation as a center is the collection of data with respect to the suffering of civilians within Ukraine can you explain a little bit about what that methodology is?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Um yes … um that methodology is um yes um we was the first human rights organization who sent mobile groups to Crimea and to luganska and Donestk region regions in 2014 when Russia started this war of aggression I remember that moment we really don't understand even that the war started and we sent mobile groups to document what's going on because we received multiple requests from people from that regions about enforced disappearances intimidation legal detention and other kinds of persecutions and on so-called I'd identified soldiers appeared and it was looked very dangerous that for that moment from that moment we started to focus on such type of war crimes as a legal abduction legal detention sexual violence killing civilians on the occupied territories as well as political motivated criminal and other kinds of persecutions on civilians in occupied territories but when large-scale Invasion started we United our efforts with several dozens organizations mostly Regional one and we created all Ukrainian network of local documentators we covered the whole country including occupied territories and we call themselves ‘Tribunal for Putin initiative’ and we have an ambitious goal to document the each criminal episode in the smallest Village in in each region in Ukraine and we use different source of collecting information we sent mobiles groups to work inliberated territories We Gather a testimonies and of victims and witness of international crimes we analyze in open data with further verification and if something happened our local documentators are able to come to the to the place and make their own photo video and speak with people and make brief description what's happened I will finish with that fact that working together and putting everything in one database we have for current moment only at after 11 months of large-scale invasion more than 31 000 episodes of war crimes and this this is only a tip of iceberg.
Prosecutor: Thank you, now I'm going to come back to that in a little bit more detail uh in a few moments but let me ask you this as part of the duties that you've described uh and particularly with regard to the ongoing conflict now do you keep yourself apprised of the documents relating to the uh to the conflict such as the United Nations documents and statements on the conflict
statements for example by President Putin that sort of thing?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: We examine the documents during all these years which was uh produced by different International organizations I mean United Nations Council of Europe, OEC which is related to Russians war against Ukraine because we are human rights lawyers and our field of struggle is the law.
Prosecutor: Right so I'm going to then address your attention to a couple of these documents and I will ask Madam registrar to distribute these documents to the bench the first one is adocument from the United Nations General Assembly it's entitled resolution adopted by the general assembly on 2nd March 2022. (Madam registrar)
So for the record this is a document that was dated the 2nd of March it was distributed by the general assembly on the 18th of March it's for official records it's entitled a backslash r-e-s backslashes dot dash 11 backslash one uh it's subtitled aggression against Ukraine Madam witness, do you have a copy of that document in front of you?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes
Prosecutor: all right now without going through it in any great detail what I'm going to do is address your attention to the third page where there is a series of numbered paragraphs and in particular we can see in paragraph three four six nine and twelve that each of those begins with a demand by the general assembly that is directed towards the Russian Federation have you had an opportunity to review those demands that were made in this General Assembly resolution?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes
Prosecutor: And are you able to say now whether any of those demands according to the information that you've been Gathering have been satisfied or met by the Russian Federation Russian Federation violates all these demands let's look more carefully at demand number 12. and I'm going to read it for the record which demands that all parties fully comply with their obligations under International humanitarian law to spare the civilian population and civilian objects refraining from attacking destroying removing or rendering useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population and respecting and protecting humanitarian personnel and Consignments used for humanitarian relief operations now Madam witness can you tell us whether any of the data that your Center has been collecting relates particularly to this form of demand whether there is information available to you that would be able to elaborate on whether this demand to spare the civilian population is being satisfied?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Because we have a database which is filling by efforts of local documentators from the whole country we can and I can convincingly state that Russian Federation use this crimes which is described in this chapter at the methods how to win this war and this is systematic practice we have a lot of examples and Russia's troops deliberately challenged on residential buildings schools churches hospitals museums attack evacuation corridors manage filtration Camp system organized forcible deportations commit murders tortures rapes and other kinds of offenses against civilian.
Prosecutor: All right, Thankyou madam witness! ….. I'm going to now direct your attention to a second document and I'll ask the registry and Madam registrar to assist the judges with Distributing copies of this it's entitled uh International court of justice summary it's the summary dated 16 March 2022 it's further subtitled allegations of genocide under the convention on the prevention and Punishment of the crime of genocide in the matter of the Ukraine versus Russian Federation do you have that document in front of you, madam?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes
Prosecutor: Madam registrar do the judges have the copy of that yes all right now in particular this is a multi-page document and I'm going to address your attention to page number two three four five six seven although at the top it seems to be a numbered page number eight it's under Section six entitled operative clause do you have that page in front of you yes all right
Time Code: 14:12 - 15:33 (same for Website)
so here this is the result of the international court of justice summary where they were considering issues in the case of Ukraine versus Russian Federation and it reads its follows the court indicates the following provisional measures the first one being the Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine and secondly the second provision is the Russian Federation shall ensure that any military or irregular armed units which may be directed or supported by it as well as any organizations and persons which may be subject to its control or Direction take no steps in furtherance of the military operations referred to in point number one above now with regard to those two provisional measures Madam witness are you able to say from the data that your Center has collected whether either of those measures have been satisfied by the Russian Federation?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Russian Federation didn't fulfill this provisional's measures of international court of justice
Prosecutor: thank you madam with us I'm going to direct the Court's attention now to a third document which Madam witness you did not have in front of you but I will read the relevant portion your honors this is the indictment of the office of the prosecutor I'm referring now to page number six paragraph 15 and I will read it for the record this is an allegation of fact that the office of the prosecutor has made in the context of this uh this charge and it reads its photos the assault and pattern of Civilian casualties has continued since being since the con invasion of 24th of February the office of the UN High Commissioner for human rights OHCHR reported 18,657 civilian casualties from 24 February 2022 to 29 January 2023 recording 7110 killed and 11 thousand and 547 injured now with respect to those OHCHR figures alleged in this paragraph Madam witness on the basis of the information that your Center has been Gathering do you have any commentary as to the statistical relevance of those numbers?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: We issued an open statement to UNHCR in Spring last year which was signed by dozens of organizations who collect testimonies and gather it information about war crimes in Ukraine because we see the differences between our data and data or which presented in a un press release and in this open state statement which is very easy to Google and to find we say that we understand that UNHCR has a very strict methodology and they can put into their press release only those cases which they fully verified but we asked them to make a very distinct disclaimer that it's a tip of Iceberg because it's not the whole data because when we saw this data we understood that it's not reflect and no show their International Community the real scale of these Russians were.
Prosecutor: Thank you now I'm going to ask a one final open-ended question before turning you over to questions by the bench and the question that I have for you is this I understand that you're extremely busy demands on your time are numerous and you've really gone out of your way to come here and be with us in person today and
Time Code: 18:56 - 21:00 (same for Youtube)
I wanted to ask whether or not uh well what your personal motivation is for coming and agreeing to testify today and what you would like to tell the court about your participation in this process?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: It's a very important process for me personally because we're struggling for justice and I ask the judges of this court to provide judges to provide Justice I work with people who survived the hell and I know for sure that these people need to restore not only their broken lives but they believe that Justice is possible even though delay in time I also know that all this hell which we now face in Ukraine is a result of total impunity which Russia enjoyed for decades in Chechnya in Moldova in Georgia in Mali in Syria in Libya in other countries of the world and we must break this circle of impunity I also know that Justice
is a tool which can prevent a new atrocities to appeared and I ask judges to ensure Justice for victims of this war not only for Ukrainian citizens but also for other nations who can be possible the next Russian Target.
Prosecutor: Thank you, thankyou madam witness those are all of my questions if it pleased the court the prosecution has finished the uh the examination of this witness thank you very much.
Judge Priya Pillai: First of all I just want to say thank you very much for taking the time for coming here and for Illuminating us on some of the incredible work that you and your organization are doing we deeply appreciate it I think just in terms of some of the questions on the work that you're doing um you know we have also been deeply moved by the testimony of uh the Ukrainian citizens who've come before this Tribunal for the last three days as well and I was just wondering I this may be outside the scope of exactly what your organization is doing but I would like to know a bit more about what is being done to support some of these victims and the communities um you know who have been at the receiving end of these terrible atrocities and I think the other sort of interrelated question I suppose is also when you do all this work is this going to the state agencies in Ukraine to try to ensure prosecutions as well again I suppose it's lower level perpetrators or if some have been caught so I think just to get a sense of where you see that process of Justice um going within the country as well.
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Thank you thank you very much I will Define this question for two parts first how we work and how just how victims was supported before our skill innovation started and then after because it's two different stories when we speak about eight years before the large-scale invasion the eight years of wars were because Russia started this war not in February 22 but in February 2014. uh we our organization work with people who survived captivity and who was bitten raped tortured witnessed killings of other people and their relatives and um like we also try to push Ukrainian state to elaborate a proper legislation and to make introduce like new practices to support relatives and victims of this horrible crimes and um also we collected testimonies and I personally interviewed hundreds of people and we sent numerous reports to Yuan to OEC to Council of Europe to European Union but nothing changed and this practice still continue under occupied territory by Russian Federation and I personally felt frustrated because I know that at the same time when we interviewed people who tell how they was beaten how he was raped or how he was smashed into wooden boxes or how his fingers were cut or how he was tortured with electricity in the same second the same atrocities as going on in occupied territories after large-scale Innovation we faced with unprecedented numbers of different kinds of war crimes which means that we face with unprecedented level of human pain and millions of Ukrainians suffering and it's very difficult to provide a system to all and even to some majority part because some people ask to help them to evacuate from Russia where they were forcibly deported some people ask to release their beloved one from captivity under occupied Ukrainian territories and some people need psychological treatment after losing their family and some
people like left without homes because Russian Rockets hit their residential buildings and it's very difficult when you're in a war in large-scale Invasion to fulfill the needs of victims and like I have an impression for current moment that the law doesn't work at all because Russian Federation ignored the whole Norm of international law and decisions of international organizations by I but I do believe that it's temporarily and we will fix the situation and restore the legal order.
Time Code:26:22 - 28:51
Judge Priya Pillai: Thank you I had one question which I'm not sure if you have the information on but I was I was just wondering this is the general assembly resolution of March and I do note that one of the paragraphs of course in the resolution talks about uh withdrawal of forces and the status of certain areas and it refers to Donetsk and Luhansk but it does not refer to Crimea and I was just wondering if you had insight into why Crimea has been left out of this uh whether it's you know only to relate to the most recent events but as I understand it that's also part and parcel of of this conflict?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: As I understand this General Assembly resolution which was adopted on 8th of March so several one week before this illegal referendum under riffles started the general assembly referred to the whole Ukrainian territories which under attack by Russia without any specification because for that moment in 8th of March there will be no specification this this differences appeared only after this illegal referendum because then Russia declared that they annexed premium and this is a Russian territory and Russia did it recognize that they have a general and whole control over the part of Logan's region uh which they have for all these years so and this logic also can um I can see that this this logic um that um in other following documents of general assembly and other resolutions of international Regional International organizations and uh General Assembly later uh declared that occupation of Crimea is illegal and the same we can find in their annual report of international criminal court which uh say that it's International armed conflict and this is a lasting occupation of peninsula.
Judge Stephen Rapp: Thank you thank you very much for being here today Madam witness and I must say I really share with you the view about impunity breeding impunity and the importance of drawing a line and establishing Justice. I did want to ask you about your work in documenting crimes that have occurred since the full-scale invasion of one year one year ago tomorrow you mentioned I think 31 000 incidents that you have documented which as you know dark the tip of the iceberg in in your documentation do you make an effort to identify the units that are involved in the crimes or the individuals that are involved in the crimes um if we have this information for example from the uh from the testimonies of witness or victims we always put this information in our database but our database is only initial stage for the following investigations and that's why we're very closely working with the office of General prosecutor in Ukraine we provide information for International Criminal Court we also share our information with uh un International Commission on inquiry which was created by un secure Council on human rights as well as Moscow mechanism of OEC so because we just collected the fact of crimes and for current moment have no resources to follow each criminal episodes and to identify traitors by ourselves as civil society actors we share our information with national and international institutions who have mandate and obligation to do.
Judge Stephen Rapp: The prosecution in this case has presented us with allegations which we have to weigh based upon evidence that we receive uh regarding the use of mercenaries by the Russian Federation Wagner group or the Kadirov group associated with the with the pro-Russian leader of Chechnya have you collected any information about the activity of mercenary groups fighting alongside or in support of the of the Russian actions within Ukraine.
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes, we collected this information and we support that because they are Russian Federation citizens, they are like a part of Russian army.
Judge Stephen Rapp: But now do you have any indication or any distinction based upon uniforms or anything else of involvement and say by say the Wagner group the International Security Company of course that's involved in in Africa and elsewhere but is at least purportedly involved in operations like those around Bakhmut (city in Ukraine) uh is have you obtained any information that would confirm or question whether that group was involved in the hostilities?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: When we interviewed victims of international crimes with detailed questionnaire we have the question whether or not they can identify their army Brigade which committed these crimes and if they can mention some special uniform or some special or some what they speak in with about with together how they call themselves we put everything in this interview report but once again sometimes it's possible to identify the army brigade and even some make some poor trait of perpetrators sometimes not and but we believe that we live in digital era and with a national investigation and international investigation can use our data and fulfill the gap in our data with other appropriate actions which provide them opportunity to identify their perpetrators.
Judge Stephen Rapp: And I understand what you're saying very clearly the role that you play and counting on others to be filling in uh gaps that are within their area of view or information I just wanted to make clear uh do you have in any of your reports any indication of the involvement of the Wagner group or any other mercenary or force?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes uh have the mentioning about forces of Kadirov and Wagner group and they committed a crimes, international crimes on the territory of Ukraine and when we discuss this with human rights defenders from other countries for example from Mali like we see the same part Libya I'm sorry with Libya we see the same pattern
Judge Stephen Rapp: okay thank you very much
Judge Zak Yacoob: Witness, I do have a few questions firstly the summary of the court judgment that you handed in is unofficial have you compared it with the true full judgment and I are you personally satisfied that the summary is accurate
Oleksandra Matviichuk: I'm sorry I don't understand the question
Judge Zak Yacoob: You see the annexure that you handed up the summary of the judgment of the court says that it is unofficial, yes it is not an official summary and I'm asking you whether you have studied the judgment and whether you can assure us that the summary is accurate? Oleksandra Matviichuk: um I I um I don't have opportunity to read indictment Judge Zak Yacoob: But um no the full judgment in the case that you handed up have you read that in the international Court International court of justice the order that you provided a summary. Right? Can you can you look at the document please? Can the witness have the document before her?
Prosecutor: Yes if it please the court Mr. President I think I can assist with respect to this the document that was provided to the witness was provided by me, I printed it from the International Court of Justice website and it is correct that it starts out as a summary - unofficial Judge Zak Yacoob: Right.
Prosecutor: whether that is because it was from the website or not I cannot say uh but uh I can say that it came from the official website of the international court of justice Judge Zak Yacoob: okay can the witness look at the document please? yes um have you seen have you seen this document before?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Yes!
Judge Zak Yacoob: You notice it says unofficial. Have you read the full judgment in this case? Oleksandra Matviichuk: When International Court of Justice… when Ukraine applied to International court of justice with their request to start a court proceeding of being misused of Russia of Convention of genocide I personally follow this court proceedings and when the court make the their decision with provisional measures I read this document that time like I was mostly focused on provisional measures um than the summary because it's not the like the final text and um I think that generally the international court of justice described the very obvious and distinct arguments and explanation.
Judge Zak Yacoob: Okay, so the bottom line is that you have not read the full judgment
Oleksandra Matviichuk: I read it before uh like the whole decision when it was issued … (Pause) Judge Zak Yacoob: Um so you have read it? I just wanna know whether you've read it or you haven't?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: When we speak about decision of International court of Justice which was issued by request of Ukraine as a state
Judge Zak Yacoob: Yeah…yeah!
Oleksandra Matviichuk: and they told that there is no misuse of genocide convention and Russia have no ground to use this genocide convention provisions and they made provisional measures that they have to pushed out their troops out of Ukraine. I read this decision like when it was um done several years ago like a year ago less than a year ago last year because not several years because the Judgment was in March 2020 yes sure so you have read it you say generally yes you have not read it fully and properly not fully and properly okay and you cannot confirm that the summary is accurate I can confirm that a general explanation or arguments which International court of justice used in this decision is okay and I agree but I don't read it like a lawyer who will try to find a weak places and then build additional arguments and show additional evidence to International court of justice so I look at like a general a reader not like very carefully not like a lawyer.
Judge Zak Yacoob: Yes,okay then I should not have asked you the question. I thought that you did do your work like a lawyer. Let's then go to paragraph six of the judgments more,small Roman number six … ( VI).Is that quotation correct?
There are three paragraphs, notice they are of the order one two and three, are those correctly quoted do you know or don't you know if you don't know just say so Oleksandra Matviichuk: No I know and I can see it I open the page okay is it correct the provisional measures which was uh issued by International Court of Justice is very clear they asked Russia to suspend the military.
Judge Zak Yacoob: I'm not asking you whether it's clear or not I understand it what I'm asking you is this correctly quoted from the actual decision or not that is all
Oleksandra Matviichuk: from the decision which was announced last year Judge Zak Yacoob: Yes
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Um the problem is that I'm not native speaker and maybe some would you like an interpreter no I don't I like I I just want to explain that I can't if you ask me is that uh documents was bringing from a website of uh International court of justice like uh I think yes because like the main sense of provisional measures are I in this documents and as I remember this from what I read before it was formulated in this way.
Judge Zak Yacoob: So there were two descents now I may not have you may not be able to answer this question because you didn't read it like a lawyer and I'm sorry I assumed that you did but um….paragraph one and two of the order, uh 15 votes 13 votes to two of the 15-member court. Paragraph three is the only paragraph that is unanimous is it if you can't tell us just say you can't tell us is it possible for you to tell us what the essential difference was in the reasoning between the minority judgment of two judges and the majority of 13 because there was agreement you will see only in relation to paragraph three paragraph one and two is 13 votes to two votes, do you see that yes
Judge Zak Yacoob: Now do you understand what the what the difference was between the two judges what was the essential difference?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: Its difficult for me to understand why some judges don't support a very like obvious claim that their armed forces of another country who invaded the neighboring country has to return back dear um your honor I have no idea because like I think that it's not you have not to be a lawyer you have to have a common sense to understand that if one country invaded another country they have to pull out their troops from territory of another country
Judge Zak Yacoob: I'm sure that you will agree with the majority judgment I have no doubt about that but my question is different don't worry about that um there's one more area I must cover with you and I don't know whether I'm asking you this question as a lawyer or common sense or whatever it may be but um …..
Time Code: 43:56 - 45:50
Is there conflict in the Ukraine between Russian ethnic people and Ukrainian people?
Oleksandra Matviichuk: This war has a genocidal character and Putin openly say that Ukraine state has no right to exist there is no Ukrainian language there is no Ukrainian culture when Russian troops forcibly deported Ukrainian children they put them in so-called education camps to educate them as Russians when I spoke with teachers from occupied School in Berdyans'k (City in Ukraine) they told me that first what Russian troops asked them to do when they came to their school to provide them book of Ukrainian history because they want to liquidate all this book I know that in occupied territories you can be detained tortured and even killed only when you express a very visual your Ukrainian Identity or pro-Ukrainian sympathy and I know that in Kiev region in Jagina Village when people were forced to the basement and spend their more than 25 days and without appropriate facilities and asked for toilet papers Russian troops bring them books of Ukrainian language so I like I see that this war progression has a genocidal character as intent to partially or completely destroyed one ethnic group
Judge Zak Yacoob: All right let me say I'm very sorry to have bothered you have limited time I regret that I asked you any questions at all I'm sorry I shouldn't have wasted your time and uh thank you very very much for coming and carry on with the good work …. Thank you Mr. Prosecutor.
Stephen Rapp: Thank you, We have no further questions.
Prosecutor: Thank you very much, Thank you Madam and thank you Mr. President your honors um that concludes the presentation of this witness's testimony so she may be excused and the prosecution is prepared to present the next witness that will be a video testimony.
