Representatives of the European Union, including 12 foreign ministers and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, commemorated the victims of the Bucha massacre in Ukraine on Tuesday. In March 2022, Russian troops killed more than 450 people in the town near Kyiv, an atrocity that has become one of the starkest symbols of the war’s brutality.
Once again, calls were made for those responsible to face justice.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate and activist Oleksandra Matviichuk was received last week by the Grand Duchess and in Luxembourg’s Chamber of Deputies. She has been advocating for victims’ rights since the Euromaidan protests in 2013. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea shortly afterwards, she continued her human rights work.
Her organisation, the Center for Civil Liberties, was among the first to deploy mobile teams to occupied territories to document war crimes.
In conversation with RTL, Matviichuk explained that this work is now carried out alongside dozens of organisations from across different regions, united under the “Tribunal for Putin” initiative. Together, they have documented more than 100,000 alleged crimes across the country, including in occupied areas, she said.
Matviichuk stressed that those who refuse to submit to Russian occupation are subjected to terror.
She further described a systematic effort to erase local populations, with the Ukrainian language and culture banned. Alongside torture and executions of civilians, one of the most disturbing practices is the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
There, they are placed in camps and subjected to indoctrination, being told they are not Ukrainian but Russian, that their parents have abandoned them, and that they will be adopted and raised as Russians, according to Matviichuk.
An estimated 20,000 Ukrainian children have been deported, although this figure remains uncertain due to limited access to certain occupied regions. So far, around 1,400 children have been returned to their families.
Matviichuk warned that time is critical, as childhood does not last forever. She explained that these children are at risk of losing their identity and being militarised, with Russia effectively preparing a new generation of soldiers from them.
Matviichuk emphasised that two judicial systems are currently addressing these crimes: the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, and Ukraine’s national courts. She stressed that the responsibility does not lie with a single individual but with an entire system, describing the crimes as systematic and widespread.
Referring to Putin as the world’s largest child abductor is not merely rhetorical, she argued, but grounded in legal accusations.
Her work and commitment have gained international recognition, culminating in the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, which she received on behalf of the entire team at the Center for Civil Liberties in Kyiv.
