On June 13th, 2022, Ukrainian members of Parliament Yevheniia Kravchuk and Rustem Umerov joined Canadian politicians, diplomats and thought leaders in Ottawa for a discussion on the latest developments from the war in Ukraine. The discussion was moderated by Tom Cormier, President and CEO of the Parliamentary Centre, and coincided with the 110th day of war in Ukraine. Mrs. Kravchuk and Mr. Umerov candidly recounted the devastation and war crimes they have witnessed firsthand and shared their perspectives on a potential peace process, the desire for justice and the role the international community can play in putting an end to the humanitarian crisis.

Ms. Yevheniia Kravchuk, MP, is the deputy head of President Zelensky’s Servant of the People political party, and deputy chair of the Ukrainian Parliament’s Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy.

Mr. Rustem Umerov, MP, is a member of the Ukrainian delegation responsible for negotiations with Russia, delegate of the Qurultay of the Crimean Tatar People and adviser to the Leader of the Crimean Tatar People, Mustafa Dzhemilev.

Tom Cormier: You mentioned your work at the negotiating table. It’s hard to see a genuine peace process right now. Can you let us know what you think is necessary for this to get back on track and for us to see a dialogue in public again?

Answer (Mr. Rustem Umerov): As everybody knows, diplomacy is strong when you have weapons backing you up. Americans say: “in God we trust, but pass the gun”. You cannot sit, talk, and negotiate – it’s not literature. They should know that you are influencing the battle. If they don’t see that you are strong in the battlefield, they are not going to negotiate. At this stage, we halted [negotiations] after we saw the atrocities. We halted, but it doesn’t mean that we are not in contact.

Russia sees that the West is not supplying weapons on time, so they want to attack Ukraine until late autumn, especially the cities like Nikolaev and Odessa, and they are fighting for Luhansk and Donetsk regions. They will be fighting, and by late autumn, they will come back to us and say, “we have either seized or not seized any territories, and let’s discuss”. So, what should be done? We need equipment that can hit targets at 300 or 400 kilometres away, which is why we ask for MLRS rocket systems. If they seize a region, you have to hit it back.

There are four types of, let’s say, defense systems, needed to save more people. We need to hit their defense systems and then go in with tanks, which we don’t have. After the tanks we must enter with APCs, which we don’t have, and then with people, who have no armour, no helmets, and no vests. We don’t have [these things], but we are fighting. We’re fighting with everything in our hands, so we can resume our negotiations at any time. At the moment, we are focused on two things: prisoners of war and evacuation of civilians. We discuss it, it’s not a very public issue, but we exchange those who are kidnapped, tortured, killed, and raped. Four hundred thousand civilians were evacuated. The second issue is our food security. We are discussing through the UN the opening and unblocking of ports. Those are, at the moment, our negotiation priorities. We are ready to discuss all the other variables if, of course, we have weapons in our hands.

Question: You touched on this in your remarks: for several months, many countries, including Canada, have indicated they want to work with Ukraine to prepare submissions for an eventual international proceeding on war crimes. How is this work proceeding in terms of the collection of this evidence, and is this the right time to be doing this while the war is still hot?

Answer (Ms. Yevheniia Kravchuk): It has to be done when the war is hot because it has to stay in the court and the judge will not listen to just to the words, they need the evidence collected. And that’s why we are thankful for your cooperation at the International Criminal Court (ICC), but we need to understand that the ICC will not be enough. We will need a special tribunal, as we had the Nuremberg Tribunal after the Second World War, because there are tens of thousands of cases of war crimes.

The Russians have committed every war crime you can imagine. And the ICC, at the same time, has only eight or nine cases. It will not have the capacity to go through all of the [crimes] that happened. The tribunal should be established. My personal view is that it should be called Mariupol International Tribunal. I really hope we can make it in Mariupol when we liberate this land, and it will be forever in history.

It’s important to have this tribunal because this evil cannot go unpunished. If you don’t punish the evil, it will return and return and return. There is a huge line of atrocities from the soldier that raped someone on the ground to the commander that gave this command, or did not stop them, or sort of said “you go and do whatever to whoever you can,” and to the political leadership that made this happen. That’s what we see as the true peace, because true peace cannot go without justice.

Question: Both of you are elected members of Parliament. I think you both touched on the fact that this is a war on democracy just as much as it’s a war in Ukraine. What’s your sense of what Canada and others can be doing to support the resilience of Ukraine’s democratic institutions, in particular the Rada in which you work? You mentioned, despite these horrific actions, the Rada still persists, and it still tries to do its work. What would you like to see the international community do to demonstrate support for the resilience of Ukraine’s democratic institutions?

Answer (Ms. Yevheniia Kravchuk): First of all, yes, we have the full operation of government, full operation of parliament, and the full operation of local councils. Also, we have a huge network of volunteers and NGOs that work on the ground. And I see how the small NGOs work, but I didn’t see the Red Cross on the ground in the first months. They appeared later on, and when we asked: “Hey, there is a war, come, please help”, they responded, “We’ll come back after the war is over.”

The small NGOs, which would have 20, 30, or 40 people, were going to the hotspots, trying to recruit people to evacuate animals that were trapped. The husband of a member of Holos party was killed when he was trying to evacuate people. They’re just ordinary people. They don’t get billions of dollars in budgets for this. If you want to help our society, please help the NGOs who are working on the ground.

For us as members of Parliament, there is no better aid than putting sanctions on Russia, helping with financial aid for our country and giving us weapons. That’s the three things that we ask for, because that’s the only thing to win this war.

Mr. Rustem Umerov: I would say that after the war, Canada should rethink how it will be involved in future wars. You are not far away, you are bordering Russia in the Arctic, so it will eventually come to you. It’s coming, that’s why you have to be ready mentally. Before the war, I gathered our team and I said to them: “you know that we are doing human rights work, but one thing that I want everybody to know is don’t hesitate. When it happens, just don’t hesitate. Right? They will come and kill you. I would probably just tell you that. Why you were the worst enemies? You were criticizing them. Any hesitation will just make you suffer. If you hesitate, you will die. Better fight back until you die. Don’t be captured, they will be torturing you.” This is what I have to do as a human rights activist.

Basically speaking, Canada should not think it’s far away. It’s already engaged in the Arctic. Canada needs to think about what your assistance can be in logistics, in resistance, and in soft power. At this stage, I think that Canada is strong in soft power. You can help the human rights activism in occupied territories. If we had been stronger in fighting back in Crimea in 2014, then today we would not have missile attacks from Crimea. Now we have all these ballistic attacks coming from Crimea. Basically speaking, support human rights efforts, if you want to help in occupied territories, you can help.

Second, you can send your people as law enforcement officers to investigate the war crimes that lead to the tortures, kidnappings, killings, and rapes.

Third, you’re good in producing the APCs or LAVs. You can send them. It’s an armored car. You don’t have to convince yourself that you’re sending some lethal weapon. It’s even disgusting to hear such things. Why? Because it saves lives, so let’s not show them that we are weak. It has nothing to do with human rights. That is why, do small things if you don’t want to get engaged.

I would encourage you to start stepping up. If they walk down through Europe, they will come back to these territories as well. Please mentally get ready.

Question: What’s your message to those who feel fatigue? You touched on it about falling from the front pages, not the first news item in the bulletin. What’s your message about keeping this on the front pages, keeping this front and center in dialogue?

Answer (Ms. Yevheniia Kravchuk): You just have to ask yourself what world you want to live in. Do you want to live in the world where in every corner, a guy from a big country who has weapons can go to a smaller neighbour, and invade? In every continent, is that the world you want to live in? If yes, then forget about the war in Ukraine. If not, if you want to live in a better world, in the world that after the Second World War, said never again. Well, it’s happening again. If we want democracy, the values, the freedom of choice, then help us and we will win together; if not, everyone loses.

Question: Can you talk a bit about the situation of Indigenous people, Crimean Tatars in particular, since this invasion, and what has changed for their realities?

Answer (Mr. Rustem Umerov): Small explanation. Crimean Tatars are Indigenous people of Ukraine. We’ve been fighting with the Russians for the last 240 years. The first annexation happened in 1783. The second is attempt of annexation and a temporary occupation in 2014.

We were not allowed as Crimean Tatars [to live] in Crimea. We were deported in 1944, and that’s why I was born in Uzbekistan. Only in 1991, I came back to my ancestral land. At that time, Crimean Tatars had a right to self-determination, and we have determined our future with a united Ukraine. Only Indigenous people have a right to do that, not so-called fake referendums, only indigenous people.

Indigenous people are different from other national minorities because national minorities have at least an ancestral land outside of Ukraine. Indigenous people don’t have any other country. Russians living in Ukraine will be called national minority because they have Russia. Crimean Tatars don’t have any other homeland but Ukraine.

Since 2014 we were fighting non-violently because our central government at that time asked Crimean Tatars not to fight. Western allies, the U.S., Canada, the European Union, everybody had great interest not to fight. And we were the ones who were ready to fight. But since the central government asked, we didn’t fight, we continued non-violent resistance, which means activism and human rights work.

At the moment in Crimea, we have 300,000 people living of Crimean origin, that’s 10% of the population. We have 122 political prisoners. Every Friday there is a Friday prayer for the Crimean Tatars, since they are Sunni Muslim, so we’re being either kidnapped or tortured to death. They come to your houses at 4:00 in the morning, with a huge SWAT team entering making you fear this, but we are still resisting. None of the Crimean Tatars have stopped resisting in the territory of Ukraine. We have 50,000 people of Crimean Tatar origin. Most of them are unfortunately in temporarily occupied Crimea; and most of those who are living from Kyiv to Lviv are now in the armed forces. We’re resisting now.

Other than that, we are advocating globally to support Ukraine, because our main focus and objective is to make Ukraine stand independent, strong and sovereign. And then, if Ukraine survives, Crimean Tatars will have a prosperous future with a strong Ukraine.

Question: I think you heard this many times, the world is very inspired by the struggle of Ukrainians, in particular the role that women have played is something that is spoken about often, whether as MPs, civil society leaders. Active in health care system and education system, women have really stepped up to become full defenders. But we also know that they are disproportionately affected by rape, violence, and trafficking. Given that extensive research has shown that women’s active participation in peace processes makes peace processes more effective and more durable, what do you think it will take to make sure that that happens, that women become more visible in the peace process so that we can hear these stories and they can impact what’s going on when those discussions are happening?

Answer (Mrs. Yevheniia Kravchuk): When I’m asked why there are no women in negotiation team, finally there is someone who can answer [pointing to Mr. Umerov]. I’m the author of the resolution for Parliament and Council of Europe and the name is the Women in Conflict and Peace Reconciliation. I started it two years ago and my last fact-finding mission was to The Hague, to the ICC, to the tribunal for former Yugoslavia. I think it’s not only women being at the table of negotiations, but the importance is also to have women in political positions that take decisions.

Right now, in the Ukrainian government, we have three vice prime ministers who are women. One is responsible for the exchange [of prisoners], she got hundreds of people out of basements and jails. Also, the vice prime Minister for economics, she is responsible for the infrastructure bill and the Marshall Plan. And the third one, probably the busiest person right now, is the vice prime minister for European integration, so she’s all over Europe working on Ukraine to get the status and the candidacy. And in the army, we have 17 percent women who are soldiers in the battlefield. In Ukraine, in parliament, we have 23 percent women, and that’s about the percentage of women in the American Congress.

For negotiations, I just think that the real negotiation hasn’t started yet, so we have the chance to bring more women to the table.

Mr. Rustem Umerov: I would like to explain what these negotiations are. They do not constitute good things. You meet bastards, you meet people who are sanctioned or non-sanctioned, killers, smugglers, whoever. There are officially four people in the negotiation team: the minister of Defence, head of the political party, myself, and the deputy minister of Foreign Affairs, out of which, one has been killed, and I was poisoned two times. When we talk about these negotiations, we have to understand that you can be killed, it’s their main target. My colleague was killed, and I was poisoned, as I said. There were two attempts to kill me. It’s not a fun story. You just have to understand that any time they can send you to Belarus, which I never even travelled to during the last seven years, knowing it’s de facto a part of Russia.

Basically speaking, I don’t know what the reason at that time was, but the negotiations have been put together piece by piece. It’s a chess game, but as I said, you have to always be mentally ready to be either killed or tortured to death. Even if you’re ready for this, you just have to understand it. We are soldiers. We are not negotiators or let’s say diplomats, but we do our job.

Tom Cormier: I want to thank you for your frank and open discussion, for your remarks and the videos you shared, and the very powerful messages delivered. I do want to thank you on behalf of the Parliamentary Centre for your journey here to Ottawa to talk directly with people from the diplomatic community, from our Parliament, people who are very deeply concerned about this situation and exercise influence over government policy. And so, I think the investment of your time is really appreciated. We thank you for your visit.