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Oleksandra Romantsova (born 1985) is an economist and the Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. The Center for Civil Liberties was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, shared along with the Russian organisation Memorial and Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski (who is still in jail). The Center, under the leadership of Oleksandra Matviychuk, works in documenting Russia’s war crimes, providing legal assistance to Ukrainians and advocating for Ukraine internationally.
Romantsova oversees the documentation of war crimes caused by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and leads on advocacy for the Tribunal for Putin initiative, which brings together human rights defenders from different regions of Ukraine who are also collecting data on war crimes committed by the “Putin system”.
As Romantsova says, “It's not just Putin who's responsible. It's the whole system under him”.
Since 2022, the Center for Civil Liberties has reported over 84,000 cases relating to Russian war crimes, ranging from murder, rape and disappearances to violations of fundamental rights. Over 7,500 people are reported to have died and more than 3,000 to have disappeared. For the last decade – that is since Russia’s annexation of Crimea – the NGO has been collecting testimonies from those who have lived in the territories under Russian control. Today, about 20 % of the Ukrainian territory is occupied by Russia.
Voxeurop: Your commitment as a human rights defender began during the Euromaidan protests in 2013 and 2014, which toppled then-president Viktor Yanukovych. Can you tell us more?
Oleksandra Romantsova: I was a volunteer on a hotline, Euromaidan SOS, an initiative I ran at night. During the day I worked at BNP Paribas. In the evening I helped with medical assistance after the police violence during the demonstrations. I went to the Center for Civil Liberties to help with translation: we received calls from journalists from all over the world wanting information.
In May 2014, I resigned from the bank where I was working and went to see Oleksandra Matviychuk and told her that I wanted to work with her. She replied that there was no money for another employee. I said to her, "OK, what do we have to do to get it? Oleksandra told me that we would have to look for funds. So that's what I did. I found a fund through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP): the first application we submitted was on war crimes and human rights violations in Crimea and Donbas. That was my first human rights project.
What did you do?
I was able to go to Crimea to see what was happening before the border with Ukraine was closed. Then we started going to Donbas. For example, I was in Donetsk two days before the so-called "referendum" on the [independence of the breakaway] Donetsk Republic.
Then the names of our observers were added to the lists at the roadblocks: that meant risking one's life. And we worked in the so-called "grey zone", the control zone that is still "uncertain", let's say, where the fighting is taking place. During this time we collected evidence. I have been in the "grey zone" more than 40 times. These were field missions with mobile groups of lawyers, journalists, human rights defenders, activists; it was about talking to people and collecting evidence. That was in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
In 2015 we formed a coalition with 17 other Ukrainian organisations, some from Crimea and Donbas, who had to flee: it's impossible for NGOs to work in so-called Luhansk, Donetsk People's Republic or Russian-occupied Crimea. What have we found? Mass graves, torture chambers.
And this was before 2022?
Yes, from 2014 to 2022. We have documented more than 20,000 war crimes between 2014 and 2020.
Today you can no longer enter these territories?
It is impossible for us. Since 2017 we cannot go to Russia or Belarus. It is also difficult for me to go to countries that have an exchange agreement with Russia, such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan or Transnistria. I run the risk of being sent to Russia. Since 2024, the Center for Civil Liberties has been a banned organisation [in those countries and places]. It's not just us, at least eight human rights organisations have been banned.
For us, the war has been going on for 11 years, there are millions of victims and witnesses of war crimes. A generation of children has grown up in the occupied territories. Some of them are now soldiers in the Russian army. You have to understand that it's not just a question of changing the flag: the consequences are far-reaching.
Do you mean that yesterday’s Ukrainian children are today Russian soldiers?
The territory of Donbas consists of two regions with a total population of six million people in 2014. Some left. Others stayed. Why? Because their parents were there, because they had no home and nowhere else to go. When you're over 50, it's hard to start your life over somewhere else. Many young people left, but some stayed. And the children born after 2014 are still here.
‘When we talk about the “occupation”, we are talking about a million people who are suffering: victims of war crimes, kidnapping, torture, rape. People who are sent to prisons in Russia’
The same is happening in Crimea. Young people who were 14-16 years old in Crimea in 2014 are now joining the Russian army. The problem is huge: some Ukrainian citizens do not exist in Ukrainian registers. Russia, for example, stopped providing information on orphans in 2017. And since then we have not received any information about orphans, children of Ukrainian citizens, from this territory. You understand that for us it's not about 2022.
How has your work changed today?
We are trying to calculate who and how many people are in the territories. It's difficult because we don't have access, because Russia doesn't provide any information. In Donetsk, for example, we use satellite images to calculate the size of the cemetery: we calculated that the size of the Donetsk cemetery tripled from 2014 to 2016. But we don't know what kind of graves they are. Local citizens? Ukrainians? Soldiers? We have no information.
This is a trademark of the Russian army and the Russian state today: they don't care about people. For example, they don't bother to return the bodies of Russian soldiers to their families. There is this common idea that every country thinks about its population, takes care of them, tries to have as few deaths as possible... This does not apply to Russia.
When we talk about the "occupation", we are talking about a million people who are suffering: victims of war crimes, kidnapping, torture, rape. People who are sent to prisons in Russia. We have found 83 illegal prisons in the occupied territories. And we only know this because we have people who have been released and who are telling us about it.
It is important to understand that this is a pattern that repeats itself and that we are seeing now in the occupied territories, but it goes back to 2014. Our Russian colleagues who documented war crimes in Chechnya in the 1990s and early 2000s, including [the organisation] Memorial, are working to compare how the Russian army has acted in Chechnya, Syria and Ukraine. There is a recurring pattern: they don't care about civilians, there are war crimes. They don't respect the status of prisoners of war.
Is there a difference between 2014 and 2022?
In 2014 there was the war in Donbas. And the proclamation of the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics. Despite the risks, it was still possible to enter these territories. There was a border, although many people were arrested. But it was possible to go from Ukraine through Poland or Belarus into Russia and then into the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics. It was long, it was expensive, but it was possible. Not any more.
Where does your information come from?
We have data on war crimes and other crimes from two main sources. Firstly, from people who have left and who give testimony. Or from people who bring us data.
For example, a teacher near Mariupol fled through Russian territory and brought a USB stick with data on her pupils to try to understand where they had ended up. Sometimes it is possible to communicate through secure channels on the Internet and we can get testimonies. And the second one, which is really important, is the Russian soldiers, who are sharing a lot of evidence on social networks and Telegram channels, boasting about it.
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What can you say about the collaborators?
They are either people who support Russia or people who sell information about the location of sensitive sites for money. Sometimes they are just naive people who wrote something, who were deceived, who believed the propaganda. It will be important to discuss this after the war. Today the priority is defence. When people ask us, "But why are you arresting people?". It's a war, the security risk is high.
That's why it's even more difficult to defend human rights today. Because you have to balance very sensitive issues and not just talk about human rights. It's complicated.
Is it possible to describe life in the occupied territories?
Let me explain. I live in Kyiv and, for example, today I want to buy flowers for my apartment, but tomorrow I don't know if I'll still have my apartment. Well, I think that in the occupied territories it is partly like it was in Kyiv in the spring of 2022. You can find food, you theoretically have electricity, there are resources, even if the supermarkets are not always stocked, the supply chains are broken.
There is a kind of myth that the Russians are protecting the Russian-speaking people because they say that everyone who speaks Russian is a potential citizen. Imagine if someone told you that you were French because you spoke French, and that they would protect you even if you didn't want them to.
Furthermore, and above all, you have to understand that when the occupation becomes stable and the Russian forces control the territory, they try to build a system based on fear.
Anyone can be abducted at any time. I think it could be similar to some of the stories we've heard about Latin America in the past: people who disappear in a moment, someone comes along with guns and you're gone.
Are you aware of any forms of resistance and solidarity in the territories?
Yes, but we can't talk about it, for security reasons.
Do you think that the issue of occupied territories and the situation of these populations are clear to public opinion in Western Europe?
No, I don't think so. And I find that strange. Some European countries have been occupied. Our occupation is a Bucha every day, people are killed every day.
Imagine the most dangerous neighbourhood in your city growing to take up 20% of your country's territory. Imagine being afraid to go there, or even to get out of your car. Imagine this happening in your city, in your region. You can be killed because you don't like someone who has more power than you. So no, I don't think people understand what this is about. The occupation is a terrible disaster. Occupation is not peace.
In Crimea no international mission has been allowed access, they have forcibly disappeared more than 300 people, they have blocked all international journalists. And they have expelled all kinds of churches except the Russian Orthodox Church. And the same thing has happened in Donbas. They are killing and kidnapping people. The occupation is a disaster, I repeat.
Do you have any help from Russian citizens?
Not ordinary citizens, but human rights defenders and lawyers. These are people who have been supporting us since 2014. And we know that more and more of them are leaving Russia.
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