Transcription
People get persecuted simply for having personal conversations. It's far beyond what we might think about now, how the West sees it. Unfortunately, there are people now being persecuted not just for publications but for their personal conversations, personal discussions.
So last week, I interviewed a Ukrainian dissident journalist in exile. Although he understands English, he spoke to me via his translator friend, Daria. We also had some Zoom issues, probably because we recorded this only days after the CrowdStrike server fallout. Hence, this time, I had to cut the video quite a bit to take out the repetitions and overlay Daria's translations with Vasil's answers.
Content-wise, I also checked with another colleague from the Donbas, who told me that Vasil's description of the situation in Ukraine aligns with what she knows from home. She commends him for his courage in speaking out. With this out of the way, here we go.
Hello everybody, this is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and tonight I have a special guest with me. I'm talking to Vasil Muritz, a Ukrainian journalist who has been publishing highly critical reports about his government before and after the Euromaidan events back in 2014, for which he got into a lot of trouble.
On August 1, 2017, he was arrested by Ukrainian law enforcement and charged with high treason. He then spent 11 months in a prison in Ukraine. He received support from several international human rights and journalism organizations. The International Human Rights Organization Solidarity Network in Switzerland recognized him as a prisoner of conscience, while the U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders in France demanded his release. Amnesty International also recognized him as a prisoner of conscience, and the OSCE mission facilitated his request for political asylum in Finland due to persecution by the Ukrainian authorities.
Vasil still lives in Finland now, from where he's talking to us. He's assisted by his translator, Daria, who is helping with the English. Both of you, welcome, and thank you for taking the time.
Thank you for your time, Pascal. Vasil, you reached out to me, and you are a very special case because it doesn't often happen that I get emails from somebody who actually was in a Ukrainian prison and who went through a lot of this direct hardship. Could you tell us first what happened to you and why you were accused of high treason?
Unfortunately, the situation in Ukraine is that there is no freedom of speech there whatsoever. Everything is being censored, and Vasil was persecuted and then put in prison because of his criticism of the actions of the current Ukrainian regime. The reason why he asked for this talk that we're having now is that he is personally familiar with situations where people get sent to prison and persecuted simply for having personal conversations.
It's far beyond what we might think about now, how the West sees it. Unfortunately, there are people now being persecuted not just for publications but for their personal conversations, personal discussions.
He told us that one of the men he's talking about simply had a group chat on Telegram with his wife and son, where he was discussing the current war. He was sharing some links from Russian media. Perhaps they were critical about the war, but the idea is that this chat was personal; it wasn't publicized anywhere. Even for that, the man was sent to prison for 10 years, and there are tens and tens of such cases.
The West is hailing Ukraine as a grand example of democracy. I mean, the whole rhetoric in the West is that we need to defend democracy and human rights in Ukraine. What do you say to statements like these when you hear them?
Vasil says that one of the biggest misconceptions about Ukraine is that freedom of speech is still alive there. He's talking about the law which is about to be enforced, where they are about to simply cancel the idea of traditional Orthodox religion. People are about to be stopped from even practicing their religion in their own houses, in their own buildings.
So, I'm afraid there is no talk of freedom of speech in Ukraine. Unfortunately, it's one step away from complete repression. Even during the Soviet time, Stalin did persecute people who were religious, and yes, he even killed priests, but religion was never forbidden. There were never any laws that could forbid being religious and having this religion. But Zelensky's regime is doing exactly that.
How do you think it is possible that although inside Ukraine there is so much heavy-handed censorship and repression going on, it is still possible that outside of Ukraine, in the West, this narrative is out that Ukraine is actually a good democracy? Why is it possible that the news of what's actually happening in Ukraine is not getting out into the West?
The reason is simple: Ukraine is simply a tool in this global war against Russia. Like Vasil says, the tool needs to be sharp, which is exactly why Ukraine is being used as a tool in this global war. I'm not saying that I agree with all of the actions that Russia is doing, but thinking of Ukraine as a democratic country is a big mistake. The longer we think that way, the worse the consequences are going to be.
One of the examples is the people who currently live in the territories occupied by Russia. For those people, Ukraine has stopped paying any social payments, any social benefits. They also claimed that people living there will not be entitled to any payments whatsoever. They are forbidden to take part in any official life of the government.
So the idea is, if Ukraine gets their territories back, those people will either go to jail or will have to simply move to other places. The idea is that Ukraine has forgotten and abandoned the people living there. Vasil said that a very similar situation happened in 2014 with Crimea. People living there, in his post, he said that we should not leave people with no gas, no water, no social benefits. Otherwise, when we come, people will just forget about us.
People needed to stay connected to Ukraine. However, for that mindset, he was sent to prison. Can I ask you, how does that work now that Russia occupies parts of eastern Ukraine? Are the banking connections still working? Are these people who are living in the occupied territories still able to access services from Ukraine, even despite the occupation?
Currently, there are only Russian banking services working in the occupied territories, and this is exactly what Vasil is talking about. The idea is that people were declined in all of their rights, and all of the Ukrainian banking services just stopped working in the occupied territories. This is why, over some time, Russia enforced a new law where people living there had to become Russian citizens.
Ukraine enforced a very similar law, which is that if you use the Russian banking system or become a Russian citizen, you will not be able to remain a Ukrainian citizen. This is a situation where people in those territories are declined everywhere and are refused everywhere.
In my opinion, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people who still love Ukraine and still do, but unfortunately, if the war goes on, after some time, people will lose this ability to love their country, to love Ukraine. They will just stop wanting Ukraine to come back.
For people living there, the situation is difficult because even if they get any position while continuing to live in the occupied territories, even if they become a headmaster at a school or a nurse or a doctor, if Ukraine gets the territory back, they will be prosecuted under one of two laws: either collaboration or high treason.
People really have no choice there because the punishment for that starts at 12 years in prison, up to a full life sentence. If the war doesn't stop now, in three or four years, the territories will never go back, and there will be no realistic point in returning them.
You are from Western Ukraine, as far as I understand. How is the mood in Ukraine between the West, the center, and the East? Do you see big differences between how different groups inside Ukraine currently look at the war and what has to be done? Because you wrote to me that you belong to the Ukrainians who want to end the war as soon as possible.
Right, the majority, the vast majority of people in Ukraine want to end the war as soon as possible. People are fleeing; people are trying not to get mobilized, and the majority of people want the war to end.
The perception in the very western part of Ukraine, after talking to them, Vasil says that only 2% of people who were mobilized came there out of their free will. Do you think that everybody wants to end the war, but the question is how to end the war?
Do you think that a big number of Ukrainians would be willing to change the borders of Ukraine in order to end the war? I mean, give up regions in the East and have an understanding with Russia that, okay, we are going to redraw the map.
I'm not able to answer this question because people are simply afraid to talk about that. Even if you're having a personal conversation, a phone call with a close friend, if you say stuff like that, there are cases—Vasil says there are cases—where people got sent to prison for five years for simply sharing such thoughts during their personal conversations.
In a city in Ukraine, one of the men, just one of the employees, was talking to his fellow employees on a smoke break, and he shared a similar thought about redrawing the map, changing the borders of Ukraine. Apparently, one of his co-workers had a recording device placed on him, allegedly by the secret service, and that man was persecuted for sharing his thoughts on a smoke break with his colleagues.
There is a phenomenon which even sociology cannot explain; no social studies can explain it. It's similar to schizophrenia, where you give two different answers to two very similar questions. If one question is, "Do you want to end the war as soon as possible?" people say yes. Then the next question is, "Are you willing to give up the territories and redraw the map?" and people say absolutely not.
Because if they say yes, then that would be social suicide. It would be socially dangerous to answer that way. So what you're saying is we have no way of knowing what the real preferences of people in Ukraine today are about how to end the war because they wouldn't be able to express these opinions honestly.
Absolutely. I want to say that it is simply dangerous. However, people are very tired of war, very tired of the consequences. There are areas now where people get electricity only for two hours a day.
You're living now in Finland. Are you feeling relieved that you are living in a society where you can do your job as a journalist and where you're not persecuted? Are you still able to access people in Ukraine digitally? Can you still have honest conversations with your colleagues, friends, and family back home?
Answering the first question, it's more than just relief because if I were in Ukraine now, I would have been killed, assassinated, or put back into prison. Answering the second question, yes, hundreds and hundreds of people write to me on social media. So I do connect; I do have a way to connect to them.
There are more and more talks in Europe now about how the war should end as soon as possible. More and more people realize that it should be ended peacefully, and perhaps the reason for that is the change of the president of the United States. Donald Trump, who is one of the candidates, was talking about how he was going to shift or at least put part of the responsibility for the war on Europe, which is why people are starting to change their mindset.
People in Europe are very welcoming to all of the refugees, and there is an opinion among more and more people about how the war should be ended as soon as possible. I was recently invited to a conference where there will be a lot of people from Slovakia as well, discussing the ways to end the war peacefully and as quickly as possible.
In your opinion, what would be the best way to do that? What is the most realistic way today to end the war diplomatically?
There is one thought that I want to share: in Europe, there are no governors who have experienced the situation that is happening to Ukraine now. So the way to end this as soon as possible is to start talking about it—start talking about post-war Ukraine, how it would work, what it would look like. There are no people qualified, no people with the experience to solve such crises that Ukraine has faced.
So the first step is to start talking about it. No one in Europe knows how to do that. We also have the problem that currently, the political process in Ukraine seems blocked as well because there was no presidential election. The term of Mr. Zelensky has officially ended, and the country is still under emergency law. Eleven parties are forbidden. I mean, Ukraine itself, as a political entity, is not working the way it is supposed to.
Do you think that there is a way for Ukrainians themselves to change this now, even while the fighting is still going on in the East?
The Ukrainians are peaceful people, and they realize that it will be the same for at least five years, but realistically even 10. So they will not deal with it; they will not try to change it themselves. Moreover, people are less worried about politics; all they're thinking about now is how to survive.
One example is an acquaintance of mine. His aunt recently died in Kyiv, and when they tried to bury her, they couldn't because there were power outages, and no mortuaries worked. They couldn't simply bury her; there were no places in the cemetery because she wasn't in the military. So they were offered to cremate her body, but that went against their religion.
This is the kind of thing people have to think about, not politics. This is how it is in real life, and this is exactly why Russian, American, and perhaps Chinese leaders, maybe some leaders in Europe, must start talking about it.
Would you want Ukraine to surrender? If that was an option, would you say, "Yes, surrender is better than this"?
Even though I am in Finland now, I am a Ukrainian citizen, so I am not able to answer that question. Otherwise, there will be a case opened against me. This is exactly an example of how freedom of speech does not exist in Ukraine at the moment.
But I will say a Chinese saying: sometimes to lose a war is to win, and to win a war is to lose. As an example, the Soviet Union won in the Second World War, but the cost of that is still up to this date. We keep finding graveyards of unknown soldiers, and the country on whose territory the war is going is losing.
I was asking this question not because I want to create problems for you, but because I am here in Japan, in a country that did surrender in the Second World War, and that surrender was the beginning of a very good development forward.
But it's another question. Sorry, my question would be, in the political process in Ukraine, who is the biggest problem? Are there these ultra-right-wing forces that make it impossible for the politicians in Ukraine to actually give up or to find a diplomatic solution? Or is it the corruption inside the government that keeps the solution from coming up, that keeps the politicians from negotiating?
Sure, there is one thing stopping Ukraine from making this decision, and it is the belief, the false belief, that victory is inevitable. Even Zelensky talked about that, that victory is inevitable. However, it is not. Russia has bigger resources—human resources, arms resources.
So there is another saying: when the rich man loses his riches, the poor man dies. This is very true. I don't want Ukraine to fall; I want Ukraine to remain itself, and I want the culture and the people to remain themselves. However, it has lost so much power.
Last year in Ukraine, it was the all-time low of birth rate in 300 years. Unless there is a genius break on the occupied territories or unless Russia collapses, there is no way to change that. Even if the war stops right here, right now, it will take decades to bring Ukraine back to the level of 2022.
Who, in your opinion, inside Ukraine has the most potential to lead the country into a better future? I mean, it's certainly not Mr. Zelensky, but in the current environment, are there any politicians or someone who you think could serve as future leaders to bring prosperity back?
It's hard to say because so many people left Ukraine. If we were to count, almost the population of Hungary is the amount of people who left Ukraine. So it's really hard to say.
And in order to finish this interview, is there anything else that you would like the world to know, that you want everybody, especially in the West, to understand about how Ukraine today works after two and a half years of war?
Ukraine needs to remain there. If you want the Ukrainian people to remain there, you need to stop the war right here, right now.
Okay, those are very strong words. The war needs to stop as soon as possible. I absolutely agree. This bloodshed is horrible, absolutely horrible and useless.
Vasil, I am very glad that you are speaking out and that you are still reporting about Ukraine even when you're abroad. Daria, thank you very much for your translations, and I hope we'll sit together again when we have a better connection.
Thank you both.
Thank you, Pascal. Thank you, Daria. Thank you.