“Ninety thousand”. Sitting in the compartment of a Polish train directed towards the border with Ukraine, Yevgeniy Zakharov He repeats and slowly and with precision, the huge, almost incredible figure. Ninety thousand: the number of war crimes that is calculated were committed by Russia in Ukrainian territory, from the beginning of the invasion and conflict on the vast scale, on February 24, 2022 Zakharov has dedicated his life to the defense and promotion of human rights and freedom. First against the Soviet regime, now against Russian aggression in Ukraine. Director of Khankiv Human Rights Protection Groupone of the oldest and most active Ukrainian organizations for human rights born in 1992, and a member of the Council of Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, For more than 30 years Zakharov has also been part of the Council of International Memorial Societythe international organization that in different post-soviet countries is engaged in historical research on the crimes of Soviet totalitarianism and on the defense of human rights today, With the aim of promoting a mature civil society and democracy based on compliance with the law in order to prevent the rise of new authoritarian regimes. Memorial It was awarded the Nobel Peace 2022, Together with the Ukraine Center for Civil Liberties and the Belarusian activist Ales Bialiatski. Author of more than 150 human rights publications in different countries, In 2007 Zakharov was appointed in the shadows, or the office of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights. In the days when the high plans of international politics is discussed by the future of Ukraine, Zakharov reflects on human rights trampled in his country since Russian aggression began. The concern, in particular, is for Ukrainians in the territories occupied by the Russians, In the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzia, Kherson. “We know what happens thanks to the many testimonies and the stories of those who lived in the terrorists first occupied by the Russians and then returned free”. Territories, yes, but in which people, men, women, children, families live, whose fate is hung on the agreements and decisions of diplomacy, in the hands of Donald Trump.
Zakharov, one of the great problems of this war is that of disappeared Ukrainian children, brought to Russia. How many are? What do you know about them?
«Based on our data, the number of disappeared children, of which nothing is known, is about two thousand. We are talking about orphans and children whose parents have lost their rights of fathers and mothers. The minors whose parents have been killed and which have been brought to Russia are also included in the number. It should also be said that when the grandparents or other relatives claimed them, the Russians have chosen them back. It is precisely of Russian politics to take as many children as possible on the pretext of saving them from the threats of military actions, entrusting them to other families so that they grow according to a pro-Russian spirit. The aim is to weaken Ukrainian genetic heritage. And this is one of the five elements proper to the crime of genocide ».
Then there is the question of civil prisoners, who are invisible, because they are almost never taken into consideration in the context of agreements and exchanges.
“It is true. Russia hides civil prisoners: only 1,600-1,700 on several tens of thousands are known. All of them have no possibility of communication with their family members. And they are subject to very rarely exchanges. The Russians try to offer civilians in exchange for Russian prisoners of war, but Ukraine refuses because he wants to exchange soldiers with soldiers, understandable. In total, to date, 4,131 Ukrainians have been exchanged, but only 168 are civil. For the most part, civil prisoners are men, but there are also women. They stop being invisible when they are condemned for fictitious crimes, because false confessions are extorted by the Russians with the tool of torture. At the moment there are not many condemneds-1,000-1200 between military and civilians-but the number is growing. They serve the sentence with Russian citizens, are included in the databases of the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN), a lawyer can assist them with the family agreement, it is possible to send them packages, write them, go to visit them. Until civilians are not condemned for a crime, they cannot be helped in any way ».
Do you think the US president Donald Trump will end the war?
“It is too early to draw conclusions. I don’t think Trump will support Russia in an unconditional way. Rather, I think he and the dictator Putin will fight very harshly. I do not believe in the success of the peace talks, given that the condition posed by Putin is the capitulation of Ukraine. And we will never accept it. But without the American help for us it will be difficult to continue fighting for a long time against a larger and better armed Russian army than ours ».
Do you think an agreement between Trump and Putin can weaken the work of human rights organizations in Ukrainian and the commitment to investigate war crimes?
“I think not. We will continue to document and investigate the crimes that do not have a prescription term. What can interfere will be the American sanctions against the international thinking court that will slow down its activities, also in Ukraine ».
Would entry into the European Union help Ukraine in the defense of human rights?
«Of course, because European standards are much higher. Just compare the Charter of fundamental rights of the European Union (Treaty of Lisbon of 2009) with the European Convention of 1950. The 2009 paper standards are much more serious and advanced ».
A personal question: is you a mathematician by profession, how did your commitment as an activist for human rights began?
“I grew up in an environment of dissenceing during the Era of the Soviet Union. My mother studied in the Department of Philology of the University of Kharkiv together with Larisa Bogoraz, a well -known activist and dissident of Kharkiv, and her first husband Yuli Daniel, Russian writer and dissident. They were very friends and they also became my friends. So, as a kid, I began to reprint the Samizdatclandestine publications, and of that world I learned much more than the other children of my age. Afterwards, I took part in numerous – as they say today – dissident projects. In particular, I collected money for the families of political prisoners, transferred aid from the fund for political prisoners founded by the Nobel Prize for literature Aleksandr Solzhenititsyn. I have reprinted and distributed many clandestine publications. There would really be so much to tell … I have been engaged in the defense of human rights for 53 years and in the early 90s this commitment became a profession ».
(Photo Ansa: Yevgeniy Zakharov receives the Vaclav Havel 2023 award for human rights by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Tiny Kox)
