Join the RSA, Insulate Ukraine, and the Ukrainian Institute for a fireside chat with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, in conversation with journalist and author Gillian Tett. Their discussion will explore the cycle of impunity and harsh realities in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, including cultural erasure, child abduction, and the use of torture. Matviichuk will discuss her work on documenting atrocities and the pursuit of global justice.
Harry Blakiston Houston, founder of Insulate Ukraine, will share additional insights on Ukraine and how their team’s award-winning emergency window is redefining humanitarian aid, with over 50,000 installed.
Closing remarks will be delivered by Dr Olesya Khromeychuk, Director of the Ukrainian Institute London, an independent charity championing Ukrainian culture and advocating for the urgency of global democratic security.
Speakers:
Oleksandra Matviichuk, human rights lawyer, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, Nobel Peace Prize recipient (2022)
Harry Blakiston Houston, inventor, founder of Insulate Ukraine
Dr Olesya Khromeychuk, historian, writer, director at Ukrainian Institute London
Chair:
Gillian Tett, journalist and author
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[Applause] good evening um my name is Allesa Kromachuk and I’m the director of the Ukrainian Institute London it’s a real honor for me to welcome all of you tonight on behalf of three co-organizing institutions the Ukrainian Institute London Insulate Ukraine and you’ll hear from its founder Harry Blackiston Houston at the end of the evening and the Royal Society of Arts we are gathered here in this absolutely remarkable space at the RSA which has been a center for ideas and innovation for more than 270 years and as a fellow of the RSA when I come here I feel a sense of pride for its longevity but as a Ukrainian I find myself also experiencing a certain anxiety when I’m here the space exists in the landscape that has enjoyed a long tradition of statehood or and at least relative institutional stability conditions that allow organizations to grow and to thrive and to endure in contrast there are parts of the world where imperial violence has repeatedly disrupted continuity eroded institutional memory and stifled development in these places resilience both individual and institutional is not a luxury it is a necessity for survival it is there that grassroots organizations and civil society step in to fill the gaps left by the absence of longestablished institutions ukraine is one such country and the center for civil li for civil liberties is one such organization the center for civil civil liberties is the organization that is led by um uh tonight’s speaker founded in 2007 the center played a key role in providing legal support for protesters during the revolution of dignity in 2013 2014 and from the moment Russia began its aggression in Crimea and in eastern Ukraine in 2014 it has been documenting human rights violations there since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022 it has worked tirelessly to record Russia’s war crimes perpetrated in Ukraine that same year the Center for Civil Liberties was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today even for those of us fortunate enough to work within relatively stable institutional frameworks whether that’s in human rights in social justice in public diplomacy um and public education continuity can no longer be taken taken for granted if we are serious about building solidarity in safeguarding democratic values we must place the voice of those with experiential knowledge of resilience at the center of our conversations we must learn from them at the Ukrainian Institute London a UKbased independent charity we know only too well the challenges of sustaining institutional work without guaranteed continuity and while we’re on this subject may I take a moment to warmly invite you all to come to our next fundraiser on the 25th of June you have postcards on your seats with further information and those of you who are not with us in the room you can find the information on our website our mission at the UIL is to create platforms for equal dialogue for mutual learning and for solidarity building and I’m absolutely delighted to see so many of you join us here at RSA House and online to embrace this opportunity to learn from Ukraine especially when it comes to the pursuit of global justice and it is my absolute honor and pleasure to welcome our speaker Alexandra Matvichuk human rights lawyer and the head of the center for civil liberties we’ll hear from Alexandra and then she’ll be joined in conversation with Jillian Ted journalist author and prost of King’s College Cambridge alexandra the floor is yours [Applause] thank you very much for providing me a floor it’s a huge honor for me to address to this distinguished audience as Alyssa rightly mentioned there are a lot of things which has no limitation in national borders and human solidarity is one of such things so let me start with and to express my sincere condolences with this tragedy of plane crash which happened today i am a human rights lawyer and I’m applying the law to defend people and human dignity for many years but now I as other Ukrainian colleagues we find ourselves in situation when the law doesn’t work because Russia has launched the war of aggression against Ukraine russian troops deliberately shall residential buildings schools churches museums and hospitals they attacking evacuation corridors they torturing people infiltration camps they forcibly taking Ukrainian children to Russia they ban Ukrainian language and culture they abducting robbing raping and killing civilians in the occupied territories and the entire UN system of peace and security can’t stop this when large- scale war started we faced with enormous amount of human rights violations and that is why we united our efforts with dozens of organizations from different regions we built national network of local documentators and covered the whole country including the occupied territories and working together we jointly documented more than 88,000 episodes of war crimes 88,000s it’s enormous amount but still it just a tip of iceberg because Russia uses war crimes the methods of warfare russia deliberately inflicts enormous pain and suffering to Ukrainian civilians in order to break people resistance and occupy the country while this war turns people into the numbers what we are literally doing we are returning people their names because people are not numbers and life of each person matters let me share with you one story from our database this is a story of 10year-old boy Andre from the city bravar near Kiev when large-scale war started the Russian began to bombarding Ukrainian cities and his parents did what every parents would do in such situation they took their son some documents some hustly gathered belongings to dry away from this danger zone that Russian army was storming but unfortunately on the road they faced with a line of Russian tanks and one of them hit civilian car and ran over the civilian car andre told that his father was dead but his mother was alive because they sit together in the back seat and his mother spoke to him in several seconds someone forcibly took the boy from the car and throw him to the road and Russians heat the gas tank of the civilian car again and you understand what’s happened this 10year-old boy told to my colleague how his mother burned alive on his own eyes in the front of him there is no justification for Russia’s actions there is no legitimate reason in doing such things there is also no military necessity in it russians have done such horrible things only because they could all this hell which we now faced in Ukraine it’s result of total impunity which Russia enjoyed for decades russian troops committed horrible crimes in Chichchna in Muldova in Georgia in Mali in Libya in Syria in other countries of the world they have never been punished they believe they can do whatever they want this tradition of impunity has a very long history while Nazi war criminals were tried after Nazi regime had collapsed Soviet gulak was never condemned or punished so no surprise that while the whole world commemorates the end of the second world war with a slogan never again Russians they celebrate the war with a slogan we can repeat but I’ve seen the situation it even serious i think that this collapse of international order which is based on UN charter international law which is going on our eyes has a one clear route we all start to perceive the slogan never again differently for Ukrainians never again mean we will never again allow evil to dominate we will fight with evil we will say never again to concentration camp to erosion of someone’s identity to physical extermination of entire nation to murder and to sexual abuse we will fight with evil regardless that evil is much bigger than we are and for Ukrainians never again is not just words we prove it on the battlefield but for a lot of people in democratic countries who started to take freedom and security for granted who inherited freedom and security from their parents who has never fought for freedom and security who who became consumers of this values who start to consider freedom as a possibility ility to make a choice between different cheeses in supermarket for those people never again means something different we have people who inherited democracy and freedom from their parents and who start to think in a way that never again we will fight for freedom and democracy never again we will risk our life even if something provide danger for them we will compromise with evil we’ll shake Putin hand build gas pipeline do business as usual we will close our eyes for the illegal occupation of Crimea which was unprecedented act after the second world war in our part of the world the problem is that human rights and peace are inextricably linked and states that violate human rights provide the threats not just for their own citizens but to the peace and security in general and the problem is if we based our political decisions only on economic benefits security concerns geopolitical interests or our own comfort even if we benefit in the short term we all evade for catastrophe in the long term because Russia is empire and empire has a center but has no borders empire always strives to expand i see it even in my human rights work when I interviewed people who survived Russian captivity they told me “Russians see their future like this first will occupy Ukraine and then together with you we will go to conquer in other countries.” And the process of forcible mobilizations Ukrainians to Russian army all these years is going on in occupied territories so let me conclude as a human rights lawyer who found myself in situation when the law doesn’t work when UN’s system of peace and security is not functioning properly i still have a hope because I know one important thing when you can’t rely on the legal instruments when you can’t rely on international system of peace and security you can still rely on people because we get used to thinking through the categories of states and interstates organizations but ordinary people have a much greater impact that they can even imagine ordinary people can change history and that is why three years ago when not just Putin but also our international partners were confident that Ukraine has no potential to resist with such enormous opposing power millions of Ukrainians made their choice to fight for freedom and human dignity and very soon it became obvious that ordinary people fighting for their freedom and human dignity are stronger that even the second army in the world and I’m here to say that despite everything the story of Ukraine it’s a life affirming story because these dramatic times raise hope because when freedom is denied it become powerfully break out through the every concrete individuals because hope it’s not a confidence that everything will be fine but hope it’s a deep understanding that all our efforts have a huge meaning thank you very much well thank you very much indeed for those deeply inspiring words which show us you know why you are such a powerful advocate not just for Ukraine but also for the cause of human decency and human rights and the power of law and democracy which frankly are values that we all too often take for granted in the west and I think everyone listening to you should be very very deeply humbled by what you’ve said um we should also be challenged and so the first question I want to ask you is you’ve said that ordinary people are the people who we have to turn to when legal systems fail what do you think that ordinary people in Britain including this audience can do to actually try and support you as you are engaged in this critically important battle thank you for this question pro I need microphone um I think this one thank you for this question uh I think it’s a good opportunity for me to express my sincere gratitude to people in United Kingdom thank you for your solidarity thank you for your support that you are with us in this dramatic time of our history in this fight for freedom and for human dignity we know according all sociological polls and just from millions of human stories that people in United Kingdom help Ukraine a lot so it’s a good opportunity for me to say thank you from the bottom of my heart people can do a lot uh but I’m not in a position to tell someone what they have to do there are hundreds of methods how to be helpful and everyone can find appropriate for them i know that people um organized some demonstrations that people created some exhibitions that people uh writing about Ukraine regularly just to keep focus because I remember how I told to myself in March 2022 so if Russians did this horrible thing in BHA while the whole world is watching what the hell is awaiting for us if we lose this attention so you can crown fund you can donate you welcome Ukrainian refugees you can urge your government finally confiscate 300 billions Russian state frozen assets so you can do a lot i just want to tell that we need your help we need your help sometimes people underestimate their efforts because when we faced with such enormous challenge as a war sometimes you have this feeling that everything which we are doing is so modest because it can’t stop this war but the honest answer is that there is no modest efforts in the war all efforts matters let me finish with one story from my personal life 11 years ago millions of Ukrainians stood up their voice against pro-Russian corrupt authoritarian governments who stopped the reintegration process and government responded with a large scale and systematic repressions i was coordinator of civil initiative we brought up several thousands of people to provide legal assistance to prosecuted protesters we worked 24 hour per days and it was period when every day hundreds and hundreds of people who were beaten arrested tortured accused and fabricated criminal cases pass through a care it was very scary times because we faced with an entire state machine when criminal group tushki cooperated with police police cooperated with prosecutors and the courts the former president the former government security service the majority of parliament were against people they just want to liquidate peaceful protest even physically and this feeling of lord helplessness started to be emerged and in order to help people overcome this feeling Ukrainian artists made a beautiful series of posters and I remember one of them it was a poster of a drop and it was a title we are drop in the ocean which means yes we are humans we’re not gods probably with our individual efforts we can’t change this war but without our individual efforts nothing will be changed and even more we are humans and our individual efforts probably can be named as modest but together we are ocean together we can change the history well thank you that’s very beautiful and it reminds me a bit of what happened recently in Bangladesh where they had the graffiti revolution where students were painting each of them small bits of graffiti on the streets and together that reminded people of the need to keep resisting i mean what’s happening in Ukraine is so overwhelming you face such a horrific um threat from Russia which is betting on the idea that you will that they will outlast everyone three years on what are the biggest challenges for ordinary Ukrainians now in your view there are a lot of challenges because um this war is very cruel and as I mentioned in my introductory remark this cruelty has a goal my Russian human rights colleagues from center memorial they wrote report a year ago they analyze the Russian tactics in Cheschna in Syria in Ukraine and they told this is the same war crime playbook and they titled this report the chain of wars chain of crimes and chain of impunity so we hardly work to break this chain of impunity not just for Ukrainians but also in order to prevent next Russian attack to the next nation and probably the main challenge in the war is that you always live in total uncertainty you can’t plan not just your day you can’t plan your next several hours you have no idea what will happen you live in constant fear for your beloved ones when I got up this morning in beautiful London first what I’m start to do I checked the news whether or not I still have a home to return whether or not my family and my colleague are still alive because when we go to bed in Ukraine we have no guarantee that we will get up next morning the war is a lottery and probably it will be your residential building who will be hit by Russian missiles and the challenge is that also you see unbelievable contrasts for one side this cruelty for another side you see fantastic people with unbelievable bravery with unbelievable generosity who take burden of responsibility who make difficult but right choices who help each other who rescue their life to help others whom they never met before it’s very difficult to live between these two contrast you you you just become crazy and that is why the mood of people in Ukraine is always up and down especially taking into account that what I’m personally can’t get used to i can’t get used to the constant human losses of my friends of my colleagues of people who I not don’t know personally but admire their work but my friend Ukrainian writer she one time told me that when we are down with our mood we are not down we are in emotional trenches we are here just to retreat to regroup and to continue our fight in what is not understandable for people abroad that despite the mood people in Ukraine will continue to do the right things well as I say that is deeply humbling and challenging for all of us and it makes us feel once again I should remind us all that we take so much for granted and the courage and the dignity and the strength and tenacity of Ukraine is just astonishing um and has defied expectations over and over again one of the points that you make often is the horrors that are occurring to Ukrainians inside the occupied territories those go largely you know undisussed because we can’t see them because there are no journalists um what if anything can we do to try and um help you support you in tackling that you can become our voice and help us to spread our message out what do I mean recent months we heard a lot about natural minerals Russia’s territorial claims geopolitical interests even about Zilinski suit but we didn’t hear about people we lost human dimension in this political process and it’s not okay because we must to find the answers to the very difficult questions what will be with more than 20,000 Ukrainian children illegally deported to Russia children who were puted in Russian reation camps told that they are not Ukrainian their Russian children their families their parents their relatives refused from them and they will be adopted by Russian families who will bring them up as Russians what will be with thousands and thousands illegally detained civilians men and women as well as prisoners of the war subjected to horrible torture and treatment and sexual abuse daily i personally interviewed hundreds of people who survived Russian captivity they told me horrible stories i want to forget them one time if I can because they told me how they were beaten raped smashed into wooden boxes their fingers were cut their nails were turned away their nails were drilled there were electrical shocks through genitalia knowing this detail you have a clear understanding that part of this people has no chance to be alive till the end of this this talks what will be with people in occupation in general we speak about millions millions of people live in gray zone with no tools how to defend their rights their freedom their property their life their children their beloved ones it’s not okay to leave them alone for torture and death under Russian occupation it’s not human in this war we are fighting not just for Ukrainian territories first and foremost we are fighting for people who live there before I come into London I met with a small girl in Kiev she’s approximately 5 years old her mother was illegally abducted when they live in occupied territories and she was um jailed this girl didn’t see her mother approximately for three years but she still remember her mother and she hugged me and she told that she’s missing her mom and um in this moment you feel frustration because you you you don’t have any tools how to get result just a near future to to return her mom to her small daughter especially knowing that this concrete woman went through the gang rape because I I read your testimonies which she delivers through the independent lawyers to us so you can become our voice we I’m not naive i know that politicians are always transactional they think about some interests but I also know when people created a huge public demand politicians can’t ignore them well thank you for sharing the horror the stories and also your pain because one of the problems today is the war has now gone on for three years and the headlines are dominated by politicians and by numbers and by crazy statements and it’s just too easy to forget the horrific suffering that’s going on that you are illuminating and encountering every day so thank you for sharing the pain and basically exhausting us all to keep using our voices to talk about it in terms of the children that have been ab abducted the 20,000 or so is there any sign of progress in getting them back and you know people like Helena Kennedy and others have been very vocal about trying to keep the pressure up but is that working and is there anything else that we can do to try and get those children back it’s a very sensitive problem for Ukrainian society because for every nation children is their future and that is why Russia has stolen Ukrainian children because Russia want to erose our future at all and when we speak about 20,000 Ukrainian children it’s just a tip of iceberg we don’t know the real number we know just that this is a large scale and systematic problem this uh humanitarian research lab in Yale University which unfortunately stopped your work because of um cut of you you say funding uh they identified more than 13,000 Ukrainian children so the real number can be more and more only law provide predictability but Russia ignores all provision of international law and all decisions of international organizations That’s why it’s very difficult um to to to solve this problem um the less of 1% of these people were return children were returned home and what I want to say that we have no time our greatest enemy is time because children they are very vulnerable of the erosion of their identity they are very vulnerable to militarization russian adoptive families they can change a name of a child a place of birth a date of birth so even if these children have parents who are looking for them who try to return them if they have two or three years old the longer they stay in Russia in this adoptive family the less chance that their parents will will return them finally so the situation is looks like this that Russia continues occupation and deportation children lose their childhood we lose their children but I don’t want to end uh on the pessimist note i will tell you one personal story the story of my friend she’s journalist she’s from one small city under occupation i will not name it just for security issues and in all schools under occupation Ukrainian children are prohibited to speak Ukrainian language their parents can be persecuted if they will express the their Ukrainian identity or some sign of Ukrainian culture they used Russian textbooks where Ukraine is not exist at all and they start every day with singing Russian national anthem and one child doesn’t think and the teacher asked the child why you don’t think the Russian national anthem and the child responded because I don’t know what and what’s the problem told teacher go home and learn by heart and then return so next day this teacher put this child in the front of the whole class and ordered this child to think Russian national anthem and instead of Russian national asm this child start to think Ukrainian national anthem we know that Ukrainian children are under occupation and we speak about 1,600 thousands it’s enormous amount that they provide peaceful resistance to occupiers they made graffiti they created a hidden book club to learn Ukrainian literature they do hundreds of simple but very risky under occupation things and this story when my friend told it to me we both was were crying because it’s a story about our responsibility while Ukrainian children being alone with Russian occupiers still have courage to resist we their parents the adults we have no moral rights to give up we must do everything to save them i’m going to turn to the audience for questions now but before I do I want to ask you one question while your audience is thinking about questions which is do you ever feel like giving up it’s not my character um in my Facebook long years ago in the chapter where people wrote biography I wrote two sentences which like my life credo life moto the first sentence is pessimism is a luxury which we can’t afford by ourselves and second sentence is when your force force will finish you will be driven by your character wow i think that’s once again a very powerful challenge to all of us and a reminder that actually we do not have the luxury of simply turning away and getting lazy and giving up ourselves we need to keep fighting but um let’s take some questions and it would be courteous but not compulsory to identify yourself and please do keep them short i see a question from Tony Bordon right Tony tell us tell everyone else if not me who you are briefly i can’t resist um Tony Bard from the Institute of Forum reporting thank you i think people will already know why at a conference in Washington was called the moral voice of our country and you’ve shown it again but having said that maybe you could explain a little bit why you’re really just the tip of the iceberg in your own right that really what this story is about is the civil society and the resistance of the society of Ukraine as a whole and how he has responded and really forged a nation and really come into its own i think that is a story that is really the deeper story that really doesn’t quite get told because it’s so remarkable and hard to describe i will start answering this question with personal story i was in Paris and my friend u was driving me from French TV channel to the hotel and she told me did you notice how badly French drivers behave on the road it’s because of rain and I asked what will be if the snow will start and then she and she said that everything will be stopped and I start laughing i can’t stand from laughing because it was generally January 2023 and I found myself in Ke in my flat without heating electricity water internet connection and then even mobile connection were disappear so I was laughing and I telling her you’re not preparing for blackouts you’re not preparing for blackouts nobody probably prepared for blackouts and I know for sure that it’s it’s impossible to be prepared to for the large scale war because it’s a huge difference between knowing the thing and experience the thing even me with all my experience uh work on the field for documentation of war crimes for eight years um understanding of international system this knowledge which we exchange with human rights defenders from other countries in the world i wasn’t prepared for such enormous level of atrocity so war probably is the most worse thing which just can happen in a human life but in that January 2023 and now since the first days of the large scale invasion I feel a huge wave of solidarity across the people and when we had this blackout and nobody know what will be because if three days u in a row you have no electricity then you have to evacuate the whole city because the battery will be blown up you can’t unfro them we we see the millions of examples how people help each other i remember I opened my chat in a of the house i live in a multi- flat house and neighbors wrote that there that we have gas oven so please come if you have electrical oven you can cook you can warm milk for your babies our doors are open I remember the picture and you can Google it very easily it’s picture of a teacher it’s a woman uh sit on the street very warmly closed because it’s winter it’s very cold she sit on her knees and she put uh the laptop on the metal stick and she sit near some supermarket where there is generator and some Wi-Fi available and she conducted online lectures and when I saw this picture woman sitting hours on her knees conducting online lecture in a winter street i told to myself this is act of resistance because she’s fighting for the right of our children to have education to conduct lessons in such circumstances it’s act of resistance we know a lot of stories how ordinary farmers stolen Russian tanks and put them in a row how ordinary doctors made sophisticated surgery in a basement with a candle lights how ordinary people united to help each other probably I will finish with story of my hairdresser she told me that when large scale war started her brother who for years has been living in Germany made career there created family here returned to Ukraine and because Russians didn’t provide permission for international committee of red cross to open green corridors to evacadeate civilians so ordinary people organized this evacuation under Russian fire and her brother was severely injured during Russian shall he lost both legs his um German colleagues found a way how to transport him to Germany and he was going for a long long period of very painful rehabilitation and my hairdresser she told as a sister for sure she she didn’t want her brother to return to Kiev to left his job his family in Germany but among those people whom he rescued it was one family was a small boy his name is Ditri and she told me that every day the small boy sent the messages to her brother wishing recovery and other kind things and she told that and I told to my brother that I so grateful that you saved MRI and his parents i think that dramatic times provide us an opportunity to express the best in us and when you commit such very simple acts of resistance to conduct lessons during blackout or you save people whom you never met before only at that moment you are accurately aware what does it mean to be human well that is a sentiment I think many of us once again would feel very humbled by um I was already struck in my trips to Kiev by the fact that the trains are still running so extraordinarily punctually in a way that puts British rail to shame which is not hard but and I remember once asking one of the people who was in charge of the railways you know how is it that in a war your trains are performing so much better than British trains and he said it’s an act of resistance to keep living and keep maintaining the core functions that make a civilized society and keep believing that this matters and these stories of extraordinary heroism by ordinary Ukrainians are just majestic and the tragedy is it’s taken such horror for us to appreciate this um I know that we are almost out of time can I quickly ask the organizers if we can go on for a few minutes or two one or two more okay so let’s take the two in the front row who are looking super keen and um we’ll take them both together keep them short please and briefly give your name my name is Jeremy Kaplan i’m a fellow here very quick question you’ve talked so much and so beautifully about humanity do you believe there is humanity in Russian people and if so what is the best way to try and ignite it and have some form of acting from inside Russia amongst the people mhm so can we reach out to what is hopefully the humanity inside Russia today and see whether we can do anything and um yeah Ursula Woolly and I’m the chair of the Ukrainian Institute in London i’m also a fellow here at the RSA if you don’t mind telling us a bit about how you feel now about the psychology of testimonial after you’ve worked on it at least since 2014 um and how you’re feeling about that now how it is so important politically and it’s so important legally um and whether people are wanting to share now at this stage in the war um what’s your perspective on that on psychology of what oh testimonial testimony people giving their testimony about what’s happened which is so painful and traumatic so necessary to build legal cases but what is the feeling today about people giving testimonials thank you for your questions putin govern his country not just with repressions and censorship but with a special social contract between Kremlin’s elite and Russian people and the problem is that this contract is based on so-called Russian glory and the problem is that majority of Russians still see their glory in forcible restoration of Russian empire it’s hard to explain but they really think that they have right to invade another country to kill people there to erode their identity to take their children this is imperial way of thinking and it’s explained a lot because the way how we see the world is define our actions and our decisions unfortunately it’s not the war of one man it’s a war of Russian people and here I want to emphasize that among these people there are my friends and colleagues Russians human rights defenders who found themselves in unbelievable pressure and danger because they face not just with repression from regime but against the all public opinion and they continue their work to defend people and human dignity in situation when the law doesn’t work and they can be jailed tortured sexually abused and killed themselves you know that Russian human rights organization are banned in Russia and part of my colleagues had to leave Russia part of them were jailed part of them still work with us on daily basis we have thousands and thousands illegally detained people and for us the only way to identify where they are if it possible to provide some medicine to send independent lawyer if it possible um who can’t change a lot but at least provide information what’s happened with this all the things which literally save people’s life it’s possible only because of bravery of my Russian human rights colleagues and that’s why I want to empas size because I think it’s very important example when the m majority lost the ability to make distinction between evil and good still there are people who have bravery who have honesty who has moral ground and I will answer your question with their words because I asked them once how I can help you because you live in such difficult situation and they answer if you want to help us please be successful because success of Ukraine provide a chance for democratic future of Russia itself only success of Ukraine provide this chance is not a guarantee but there are no guarantee in all our life it’s a huge luck luxury to have a chance and according to your question if I understand you correctly um millions of people in Ukraine are suffering because even knowing what’s going on can traumatize you i remember on the day when Russian rocket deliberately hit the biggest children hospital in Kiev where children were treated from oncology i was running late to one working meeting just three hours after it was happened and I ordered the taxi and the driver told me here the napkins and I said thank you but why I think I need napkins and he told me two passengers before you they they were crying in my taxi because of this hit of um children hospital so when we have millions of people in pain um you have to find another way how to do something with mental health because you can’t provide for millions of people individual psychologist it’s impossible so what we are doing we conducting a different programs how how to provide basic psychological education for people what they can do if they feel themsel bad or they see that other people needs some help we also discussing with artist with philosopher with writers um how to create a new tradition new culture new rituals which provide us an opportunity to transfer this pain into energy which enabling life and I think that despite everything Ukrainians are much more resilient that that we even think about ourself well I think your your talk has indicated the truth of that um your resilience and your determination to speak out for Ukraine has been remarkable um but Ukraine’s resilience as a society has been absolutely all inspiring and it does not give any of us the luxury of giving up or not speaking out we can all stand challenged and join your fight so thank you very much indeed for your thoughts and I believe that Harry now wishes to say a few words to conclude the evening so thank you um first of all I’d like to say uh thank you uh thank you to the the RSA and the events team who have who have helped bring together today uh it’s always a great honor coming back here uh I’m very proud of being an RSA fellow with the amount of support uh Andy Haldane in particular has showed for Ukraine and I think all of the the fellows we are we are a good group of people and and certain certainly Ukrainophiles I would say um I’d also like to thank the the UIL um I’ve learned an awful lot from you Allesia over the course of time uh and I suspect there is still much more to learn i hope that that one day in future we find you to be the person who who opens the first uh Ukrainian Institute London location at some point um and just well done for all of the work you do um and Jillian thank you for uh coming down and being late no well it was an extraordinary extraordinary uh extraordinary for you to make such an effort particularly when it sounds like difficult things have happened in the college today and well done frankly the reason I was here was because I feel so strongly about trying to support the work of Alexandra and frankly in anything we have in our daily lives is absolutely minimal nothing well said um Alexandra uh so I first uh saw you two and a half years ago at the Cambridge Union uh where you gave a a an impassion speech um uh little did I think at that point in time that I would have the opportunity 2 and 1/2 years later and the honor 2 and a half years later to to share a stage with you and and support you on what has been an absolutely phenomenal advocacy trip across the United Kingdom uh I think we are made all the stronger in our all the stronger in our in our support of Ukraine by having your presence in this country uh you are inspirational and I think you represent so many of the things that I see best in Ukrainian people the the strength the honor the dignity uh and the understanding of I think the values that we stand for in the west which is is is freedom um individualism and community so so thank you you are an inspiration um I am not a lawyer i am an engineer uh I think I maybe as of this week could call myself an an inventor for the first time which is which is a great joy um I invented a new type of emergency replacement window of which we have installed over 50,000 across the front line of the war in Ukraine uh these windows provide warmth light and safety and hope to over 15,000 homes hospitals schools administrative centers even starting from this week skyscrapers uh but this evening is not about insulate Ukraine it is not about my work uh it is about Ukraine more widely and what we can do to support this extraordinary country in my time in Ukraine I have only seen Russian aggression grow worse or maybe I have only just begun to understand what you have been going through for 15 years i expect I suspect the latter is more true but to me it seems to have grown more barbaric i returned from Ukraine last week and during my time there in this latest trip there were hundreds of drones missiles FPVs raining down on Ukrainian cities on a daily basis so many that it is difficult to sleep at night just yesterday whilst Alexandra was meeting uh the king uh I received a message from one of our team a hospital in which we have installed over 150 windows in Seana was again hit by a drone windows were shattered and and fortunately no one was killed but it does often happen our operation in Herson uh we receive over 40 calls a day of people requesting our our windows direct inbound calls we are now no longer able to respond to over 70% of those calls that is because our team when responding are attacked themselves by drones in what has now been called or coined the Hersan Safari i’m very proud to say that we do have a response for this which I won’t talk about this evening but but please do follow us because we we are going to to outthink the Russians with this one i think um the reality is none of the Ukrainians that I speak to think that peace is that close i think we kid ourselves a little bit in this country when we talk about peace particularly over the head of Ukrainians and they are the ones who know best it could and I suspect it might well end up being a long time before we see peace in Ukraine the humanitarian need is is great it’s enormous and the road may be very very long facing such a challenge I think it can be very daunting to know how to tackle this and where to start there are children’s veterans hospitals infrastructure human rights drones you name it it’s a problem so we are wanted to ask the question of how you can help how you can continue supporting Ukraine into the future one route might be to donate alongside a Nobel Peace Prize winner and so with this I’m very pleased to announce this evening a new managed collection of grassroot charities that are supporting Ukraine and will continue to support Ukraine for the long term on your seats and uh I hope later we will post it on the YouTube channel uh you will find a card and on that card if you visit the link Ukraine shortlist.com you will find a list of Ukrainian grassroots organizations having an outsized difference within their various fields in Ukraine these charities need your support not just today but potentially for a very long time and so we would appreciate if you consider a monthly recurring donation to these organizations something that gives them the cons the consistency and the certainty to be able to plan into the future you can enable them to do better work our goal over the next year is going to be to generate over 100,000 pounds in monthly recurring donations through Alexander’s short list we cannot get there without your support and the support of others you know in the Ukrainian community please do consider this evening before you go to bed or before you even leave this building beginning to set up a monthly recurring donation it literally takes 2 minutes i tried it with Tally the other day um if you’ve been inspired by Alexandra I would appreciate if you if you considered to go further and extend that support um help her to help these organizations please help Ukraine as a final thanks to to you and uh and to all of the fantastic work you do and and to the uh to the time you’ve spent supporting your country we are going to be providing a a copy to everyone in the room of this book it is Victoria Amlina looking at women looking at war probably I will tell a little bit about Victoria she was my friend she was young very talented Ukrainian writer and she joined our work to fight for justice we was together with Victoria here in London in June 2022 speaking to British Parliament so London is a special place for me and for Victoria this book was unfinished because Victoria was killed by Russian missiles in Kromaturk during one of her field mission she accompanied the group of Colombian writer to the east so frankly speaking I haven’t read this book it’s still very painful for me in this book you can find stories of incredible Ukrainian women from different fields of society ukrainian women who joined armed forces Ukrainian women who document war crimes Ukrainian women who take important political decisions Ukrainian women who coordinate huge civil initiatives this book is about one important thing that bravery has no gender and I will be very glad to present this book to you today oh thank you thank you very much indeed thank you well this is a very very inspiring book indeed and once again should challenge us of whatever gender thank you thanks um as a last point so if you would like a copy of the book please just leave your your email and your phone number on the way out this evening thank you all for coming thank you for being such great friends of Ukraine um and thank you a final thank you to to Alexander and Jillian for a fantastic [Applause]