Olekasandra Matviichuks tale ved markering af fireårsdagen for krigen i Ukraine

This is the fourth winter of the full-scale invasion. And it is very difficult.

Russian missiles and drones are deliberately destroying the energy infrastructure on which the survival of civilians depends. In January and February, temperatures drop to minus 25 degrees Celsius. Ukrainian cities are literally freezing. Millions of people have limited or no access to heating, water, and electricity.

I remember in 2022, when the Russians first began striking the energy infrastructure, a photograph appeared online of a Kyiv schoolteacher. She was wearing a red winter jacket and a warm hat, standing on tiptoe beside a metal pole on which she had placed her computer – right outside, somewhere near a shop where a power generator was running and there was internet access. And there, in the freezing cold, she was giving her students a lecture.

And I thought: the Russians came to take everything from us – our land, our freedom, our future, our children’s education. And this Kyiv schoolteacher decided to give them nothing. Even something as simple as teaching a lesson became an act of resistance.

From my own experience, I know that when you cannot rely on the international system of peace and security, you can always rely on people. We are used to thinking in categories of states and intergovernmental organizations, but ordinary people have much more power than they even imagine.

Four years ago, I was in Kyiv when Russian forces tried to encircle the city. No one believed we could withstand such a enormous military threat. We greeted each morning as a victory because we had survived another night. I remember international humanitarian organizations evacuating their personnel. But ordinary people stayed – and began to resist. Ordinary people began doing extraordinary things.

One of those people was my friend, the Ukrainian writer Viktoriia Amelina. In the first days of the full-scale invasion, she interrupted her trip and returned to Ukraine. Soon she joined efforts to document war crimes. And she did many other things at the same time.

I remember telling her: you are already doing so much, almost beyond exhaustion – writing a book, documenting war crimes, traveling on field missions, volunteering. Why take on new projects?

She answered that she had a persistent feeling that she was not doing enough. And that she did not know how much time she had – or how much time any of us had.

A month after that conversation, a Russian missile struck a café in Kramatorsk. At that moment, Vika was there with Colombian writers whom she was accompanying to the east. She was gravely wounded and fell into a coma.

It may sound irrational, but I wrote to her every day in Messenger. I was convinced she would wake up and read it all. Even when our mutual friend, who was beside her in intensive care, told me we needed not only to prepare but to accept the inevitable, I answered that I would not lose hope.

When I was preparing this speech, I opened that final conversation that Vika never read. And this is what I want to tell you.

First. I do not know what historians of the future will call this period. But the international order based on the UN Charter and international law has been broken.

The UN system was created after the Second World War to protect people from war and mass violence. But even my phone has an expiration date. This system was never reformed. And now it is stalling, performing ritual gestures. It is easy to predict that fires like wars will erupt more frequently in different parts of the world because the international wiring is faulty and sparking everywhere.

Ukraine has found itself at the epicenter of events that will determine the future development of the world. Because this is not simply a war between two states – it is a war between two systems: authoritarianism and democracy.

Putin seeks to prove that a country with powerful military capacity and nuclear weapons can break the international order, dictate its rules to the global community, and even forcibly change internationally recognized borders.

Putin did not launch the full-scale invasion to capture another piece of Ukrainian land. It is naïve to think Russia has lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers to occupy Avdiivka or Bakhmut. Putin launched this invasion to occupy and destroy all of Ukraine – and then move further.

His logic is historical. He dreams of restoring the Russian Empire. People in other European countries are safe only because Ukrainians continue to hold back the Russian army.

Second. People begin to understand that war is happening only when bombs fall on their own heads. But war also has an informational dimension, and this struggle for reality has no state borders.

The way people see the world determines their decisions and actions. That is why authoritarian regimes attack truth.

We all spend more and more time on social media, flooded with fakes and disinformation. People lose the ability to distinguish truth from lies. Now even residents of the same small community no longer have a shared picture of reality. Without a shared picture of reality, they cannot act together. And without collective action, how can we defend our freedom?

We live in what is called a “post-truth world.” But it seems to me it is a post-knowledge world. Knowledge is losing value. People prefer listening to Instagram bloggers rather than researchers or scientists. People demand simple solutions. Perhaps in peaceful times we could afford that. But no one lives in peaceful times anymore. Therefore, instead of simplification, we must cultivate complexity.

We must also resist the normalization of cruelty. A few weeks ago, Russians killed an elderly couple who were trying to leave an occupied village in the Sumy region. The husband was pulling his wife on a sled toward a point where rescuers were waiting. An FPV drone dropped explosives directly on the woman. The husband wept and would not leave her body. Then a second FPV drone struck him. Their bodies remained lying in the snow.

As I studied these materials, I remembered that the gas chambers in Auschwitz were built by professional German engineers. And that the collapse of the international system was preceded by the loss of humanity.

And finally. Freedom is not a given – it is a condition for survival. For three centuries Ukrainians lived in the shadow of the Russian Empire. We would never have survived as a nation if we had not persistently sought freedom throughout those centuries.

I recorded the testimony of Ukrainian scholar and philosopher Ihor Kozlovskyi after 700 days of Russian captivity. Before that, I had interviewed more than a hundred survivors. Еhey had told me how they were beaten, tortured, raped, locked in wooden boxes, electrically shocked through their genitalia, and their fingers were cut, their nails were torn away, their knees were drilled, and they were compelled to write with their own blood. So, there was little that could surprise me. But Ihor mentioned something seemingly insignificant for the evidence base – and it struck me deeply.

He described his days in solitary confinement. It was a basement cell that in Soviet times held death row prisoners. There were no windows. No sunlight. No fresh air. It was hard to breathe. Sewage flowed across the dirty floor. Rats crowled out from the drain.

And this scholar, known across the country, told me how he gave philosophy lectures to these rats – simply to hear the sound of a human voice.

Ihor Kozlovskyi was a victim in the legal sense: kidnapped, held in inhuman conditions, tortured so severely he had to relearn how to walk. But even this did not become a reason for him to treat himself and to experience himself as a victim. Because the foundation of our existence is dignity, not victimhood. And dignity is action.

We are not hostages of circumstances. We are participants in this historical process. Dignity gives strength to fight even in unbearable circumstances.

We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. The murders of Ukrainian intellectuals, the bloody repression of poets and artists, the artificial famine of millions – none of this destroyed Ukrainian identity in Soviet times. Because then, as now, there were always people who taught Ukrainian children. People who wrote Ukrainian books. People who preserved memory.

We sow. We sow seeds. We sow even in winter, when everything is frozen. We sow what is not afraid of the cold. We sow as an act of faith, knowing that spring will inevitably come and everything we have planted will grow. Yes, this is long work. But those who plan for the long term are the ones who win.

When I reread the messages Vika never read, I thought about how much she managed to do in her short life. I thought about the love she generously shared with me, with her family, with our friends. I looked again at the photographs in her unfinished book about women in war — a book published after her death and coming out in Denmark this year. Human life is fragile. But even so, it can be filled with eternal meaning.

I now know many things about hope. Hope is not the belief that everything will be fine. Hope is the deep understanding that all our efforts have meaning.

Dette er den fjerde vinter under fuldskalainvasionen. Og det er meget svært.

Russiske missiler og droner ødelægger bevidst den energiinfrastruktur, som civile menneskers overlevelse afhænger af. I januar og februar falder temperaturen til minus 25 grader. Ukrainske byer fryser bogstaveligt talt til. Millioner af mennesker har begrænset eller slet ingen adgang til varme, vand og elektricitet.

Jeg husker i 2022, da russerne for første gang begyndte at ramme energiinfrastrukturen. Et fotografi cirkulerede af en skolelærer i Kyiv. Hun bar en rød vinterjakke og en varm hue og stod på tæer ved siden af en metalpæl, hvorpå hun havde stillet sin computer – udenfor, et sted ved en butik, hvor en generator kørte, og der var internet. Og dér, i den isnende kulde, underviste hun sine elever.

Og jeg tænkte: Russerne kom for at tage alt fra os – vores land, vores frihed, vores fremtid, vores børns uddannelse. Og denne skolelærer i Kyiv besluttede, at de ikke skulle få noget. Selv noget så enkelt som at give en lektion blev til en handling af modstand.

Af egen erfaring ved jeg, at når du ikke kan stole på det internationale system for fred og sikkerhed, kan du altid stole på mennesker. Vi er vant til at tænke i kategorier som stater og mellemstatslige organisationer, men almindelige mennesker har langt mere magt, end de selv forestiller sig.

For fire år siden var jeg i Kyiv, da russiske styrker forsøgte at omringe byen. Ingen troede, vi kunne modstå en så enorm militær trussel. Hver morgen hilste vi som en sejr, fordi vi havde overlevet endnu en nat. Jeg husker, hvordan internationale humanitære organisationer evakuerede deres personale. Men almindelige mennesker blev – og begyndte at gøre modstand. Almindelige mennesker begyndte at gøre ualmindelige ting.

En af disse mennesker var min ven, den ukrainske forfatter Viktoriia Amelina. I de første dage af invasionen afbrød hun sin rejse og vendte tilbage til Ukraine. Kort efter sluttede hun sig til arbejdet med at dokumentere krigsforbrydelser. Og hun gjorde mange andre ting samtidig.

Jeg husker, at jeg sagde til hende: Du gør allerede så meget, næsten til udmattelsespunktet – skriver en bog, dokumenterer krigsforbrydelser, rejser på feltmissioner, arbejder frivilligt. Hvorfor tage nye projekter på dig?

Hun svarede, at hun havde en vedvarende følelse af, at hun ikke gjorde nok. Og at hun ikke vidste, hvor meget tid hun havde – eller hvor meget tid nogen af os havde.

En måned efter den samtale slog et russisk missil ned i en café i Kramatorsk. Netop på det tidspunkt var Vika der med colombianske forfattere, som hun ledsagede til frontområderne. Hun blev alvorligt såret og røg i koma.

Det lyder måske irrationelt, men jeg skrev til hende hver dag i Messenger. Jeg var overbevist om, at hun ville vågne og læse det hele. Selv da vores fælles ven, som stod ved hendes side på intensiv, sagde, at vi ikke bare skulle forberede os, men acceptere det uundgåelige, svarede jeg, at jeg ikke ville miste håbet.

Da jeg forberedte denne tale, åbnede jeg den sidste samtale, som Vika aldrig læste. Og dette er, hvad jeg ønsker at sige.

For det første. Jeg ved ikke, hvad fremtidens historikere vil kalde denne periode. Men den internationale orden baseret på FN‑pagten og international lov er brudt sammen.

FN‑systemet blev skabt efter Anden Verdenskrig for at beskytte mennesker mod krig og massevold. Men selv min telefon har en udløbsdato. Dette system blev aldrig reformeret. Og nu vakler det, reduceret til rituelle gestus. Det er let at forudse, at brande som krige vil blusse oftere op i forskellige dele af verden, fordi det internationale elnet er defekt og gnistrer alle vegne.

Ukraine befinder sig i centrum af begivenheder, der vil forme verdens fremtid. For dette er ikke blot en krig mellem to stater – det er en krig mellem to systemer: autoritarisme og demokrati.

Putin forsøger at bevise, at et land med stor militær styrke og atomvåben kan bryde den internationale orden, diktere sine regler til verdenssamfundet og endda ændre internationalt anerkendte grænser med magt.

Putin indledte ikke invasionen for at erobre endnu et lille stykke ukrainsk land. Det er naivt at tro, at Rusland har mistet hundredtusinder af soldater for at besætte Avdiivka eller Bakhmut. Putin indledte denne invasion for at erobre og ødelægge hele Ukraine – og derefter fortsætte videre.

Hans logik er historisk. Han drømmer om at genskabe det russiske imperium. Mennesker i andre europæiske lande er kun i sikkerhed, fordi ukrainere fortsat holder den russiske hær tilbage.

For det andet. Folk begynder først at forstå, at der er krig, når bomber falder over deres egne hoveder. Men krig har også en informationsdimension, og denne kamp om virkeligheden har ingen statsgrænser.

Den måde, mennesker ser verden på, afgør deres beslutninger og handlinger. Derfor angriber autoritære regimer sandheden.

Vi tilbringer mere og mere tid på sociale medier, oversvømmet af falske nyheder og desinformation. Mennesker mister evnen til at skelne sandhed fra løgn. Selv folk i den samme lille landsby har ikke længere et fælles billede af virkeligheden. Uden et fælles billede af virkeligheden kan de ikke handle sammen. Og uden kollektiv handling – hvordan forsvarer vi så vores frihed?

Vi lever i det, der kaldes en “post-sandheds‑verden”. Men for mig virker det som en post‑videns‑verden. Viden mister værdi. Folk lytter hellere til Instagram‑bloggere end til forskere og eksperter. Folk efterspørger simple løsninger. Måske havde man i fredstid råd til det. Men ingen lever længere i fredstid. Derfor må vi ikke forsimple – vi må dyrke kompleksitet.

Vi må også stå imod normaliseringen af grusomhed. For et par uger siden dræbte russere et ældre ægtepar, der forsøgte at forlade en besat landsby i Sumy‑regionen. Manden trak sin hustru på en slæde mod et punkt, hvor redningsfolk ventede. En FPV‑drone kastede sprængstof direkte på kvinden.

Manden græd og ville ikke forlade hendes krop. Så ramte en anden FPV‑drone ham. Deres kroppe blev liggende i sneen.

Da jeg studerede disse oplysninger, mindede det mig om, at gaskamrene i Auschwitz blev bygget af professionelle ingeniører. Og at sammenbruddet af det internationale system blev forudgået af et tab af menneskelighed.

Og endelig. Frihed er ikke en selvfølge – det er en betingelse for overlevelse. I tre århundreder levede ukrainere i skyggen af det russiske imperium. Vi ville aldrig have overlevet som nation, hvis vi ikke gennem alle disse århundreder vedholdende havde søgt frihed.

Jeg optog vidnesbyrdet fra den ukrainske forsker og filosof Ihor Kozlovskyi efter 700 dages russisk fangenskab. Før det havde jeg interviewet mere end hundrede overlevende. De havde fortalt mig, hvordan de blev slået, tortureret, voldtaget, låst inde i trækasser, udsat for elektrisk stød gennem deres kønsdele, hvordan deres fingre blev skåret, deres negle revet af, deres knæ blev boret igennem, og de blev tvunget til at skrive med deres eget blod. Der var altså lidt, der kunne overraske mig. Men Ihor nævnte noget, der virkede ubetydeligt for bevismaterialet – og alligevel ramte det mig dybt.

Han beskrev sine dage i isolation. Det var en kælder, der i sovjettiden havde huset dødsdømte. Der var ingen vinduer. Intet sollys. Ingen frisk luft. Det var svært at trække vejret. Spildevand løb hen over det snavsede gulv. Rotter kravlede op gennem afløbet.

Og denne forsker, kendt i hele landet, fortalte mig, hvordan han holdt filosofiforelæsninger for rotterne – blot for at høre lyden af en menneskestemme.

Ihor Kozlovskyi var et offer i juridisk forstand: kidnappet, holdt under umenneskelige forhold, tortureret så hårdt, at han måtte lære at gå igen. Men selv dette var ikke en grund for ham til at opleve sig selv som et offer. For fundamentet for vores eksistens er værdighed, ikke offerrolle. Og værdighed er handling.

Vi er ikke gidsler af omstændigheder. Vi er deltagere i denne historiske proces. Værdighed giver styrken til at kæmpe – selv under uudholdelige forhold.

Vi står på skuldrene af dem, der kom før os. Mordene på ukrainske intellektuelle, de blodige repressioner af digtere og kunstnere, den kunstigt skabte sult, som dræbte millioner – intet af dette ødelagde ukrainsk identitet i sovjettiden. For dengang, som nu, fandtes der altid mennesker, der underviste ukrainske børn. Mennesker, der skrev ukrainske bøger. Mennesker, der bevarede erindringen.

Vi sår. Vi sår frø. Selv om vinteren, når alt er frosset. Vi sår det, der ikke frygter kulden. Vi sår som en trosakt, i vished om at foråret uundgåeligt kommer, og at alt det, vi har plantet, vil gro. Ja, det er langsigtet arbejde. Men dem, der arbejder for langsigtet sejr, er dem, der vinder.

Da jeg genlæste de beskeder, Vika aldrig læste, tænkte jeg på, hvor meget hun nåede i sit korte liv. Jeg tænkte på den kærlighed, hun gav – til mig, til sin familie, til vores venner. Jeg bladrede igen gennem fotografierne i hendes ufærdige bog om kvinder i krig – en bog, der blev udgivet efter hendes død og udkommer i Danmark i år. Et menneskeliv er skrøbeligt. Men selv sådan et liv kan være fyldt med evig betydning.

Jeg ved nu mange ting om håb. Håb er ikke troen på, at alt bliver godt. Håb er den dybe forståelse af, at alle vores anstrengelser har betydning.