In episode three Yuliia and Lars Peter explore the relationship between civil society and government in Ukraine and asks the question: How does a vibrant civil society, which in normal time advocate and challenge the government, pivot to adapt its role when war breaks out? The hosts speak to Yuliya Sporych, CEO of the national Ukrainian NGO Divchata and with Oleksandr Riabtsev, Head of Demining in the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporary Occupied Territories.
Transcript
Yuliia Chykol'ba 0:40
Welcome to Trumanitarian, my name is Yuliia Chykol'ba
Lars Peter Nissen 0:43
And I'm Lars Peter Nissen.
Yuliia Chykol'ba 0:47
In the previous episode, we had several really nice guests and very vibrant discussions, I would say. So Lars Peter, what do you think about the previous one?
Lars Peter Nissen 0:57
The thing I really appreciated about our conversation was that no matter whether we were talking to Anastasia on the frontline, or to Rasmus, the CEO in Copenhagen signing checks, we were talking to people. And I really got the sense of how Anastasia on one end and Rasmus in the other end of the humanitarian food chain, if you want, we're both struggling with some of the same issues, felt some of the same shortcomings. And I thought it was a very real and honest conversation about humanitarian action in Ukraine. So I really enjoyed it.
Yuliia Chykol'ba 1:33
I also, I mean, I can relate to that. And I think it was so much easier to speak about the real cases about real problems and about the perspectives of actual people on the ground, compared to the first episode, for example. And to build on what you just said, I think, what I realised is that this gap that exists between Anastasia and between big aid, and between national society and between the international, very institutionalised, like structured system is it's very, very evident in Ukraine that it doesn't [inaudible] both sides of the story, really.
Yuliyah Sporych 1:33
Yeah, it is a shared problem. It's not like you have the good guys and the bad guys. I think we have a shared situation and a problem that we don't really seem to be able to solve. At the end of last episode we talked about, okay, we've now identified this gap, let's go on a safari in the humanitarian ecosystem to see whether we can find some new species. That was our very clever and catchy way of of describing that. But as we have dug into episode three, and tried to prepare that, I think we both could see that maybe that was not quite the right framing for this episode.
Yuliia Chykol'ba 2:52
In a way, yes. Because I think what we forgot a bit is the government as a primary responder for humanitarian response. And I'm glad that for this episode, we actually have an immensely strong voice of a very established and effective national civil society alongside with a government who is still something that we tend to, you know, ignore. The elephant in the room. And I'm very glad that we are going to not only talk about the elephant, but also to get the elephant talk to us.
Lars Peter Nissen 3:26
Yes, of course, here at trumanitarian we are always very agile. So we have simply flipped around. And so this episode will be about the relationship between organised civil society and the Ukrainian government. And as you said, you went out and found an elephant. It's great. We'll hear from him later on the episode. But first, we'll speak to your namesake Yuliyah Sporych. And maybe, would you like to introduce her?
Yuliia Chykol'ba 3:47
Yeah, Yuliyah Sporych is a CEO of a national NGO called Divchata, which translates to, like, "girls", which was active way before the escalation and transformed to a humanitarian response after 24th of February.
Lars Peter Nissen 4:02
Great. So let's listen to our conversation with Yuliyah.
Yuliyah Sporych 4:15
I'm Yuliyah Sporych, CEO and founder of NGO "girls", and mostly we work with women and children. And before the war, we mostly focused on sexual education events and woman empowering events. But right now we switched to a humanitarian response, mostly. But we do what we currently do. It's huge psychological support for women and children all around Ukraine. We have more than 60 Psychologists working with us, we have mobile teams, we have online and offline support, individual and for groups. We are also very strong on GBV prevention. And we conduct a lot of events on GBV prevention. And we also work with GBV survivors in terms of psychological support. We also can help with hosting, with recreation. And also, of course, some legal support. As a part, it's the support of shelters. We support more than 50 shelters all around Ukraine, we buy some furniture, equipment and so on. And at the same time, we continue to do our like main things in sexual education events, and we are the only one enjoying Ukraine [inaudible] from the Minister of Education to do it. And of course, we have a lot of mentoring, support food and hygiene packs for women all around Ukraine. And also we provide cash assistance. So, a lot of child care, child care protection work of kindergartens which support a lot of social reputation for kids. So mostly, we do almost everything except medicine.
Lars Peter Nissen 6:03
So following the invasion, a year ago, you changed your programming and developed a much stronger humanitarian focus. And at the same time, you had to scale up significantly your activities to meet the increase in needs. How was that process? How did you do that?
Yuliyah Sporych 6:20
Like, we started our fundraising campaign on February 27, because I am living in Irpin, and it was the first city that met Russian soldiers. We reallocated our family outside of Ukraine. And when I was in Poland, I was in a refugee centre, and they started to collect money for people in Irpin and the first support to provide was money for recreation. So we had a few projects planned for 2022 and we had money for it. I just called our partners to ask, can we use this money for recreation needs, and a few of our partners agreed and we just sent out this money. And then I started using my personal network outside of Ukraine for fundraising and a lot of people supported us. But then, again, we've worked before with UNICEF, Ukraine, but these huge UN agencies, they were mostly for allies during the first few weeks. So I just sent out letters. Hello, I am Yuliyah from Ukraine, we are supporting women and girls during the war, please support us, donate and so on. And we started with small checks. It was gone $3,000 to $10,000. And we spent it mostly the first months on education and food and hygiene support. And then in April, we started psychological support. And then from May, we started to implement the project with new partners, new donors like SOS children's Villages and World Vision. So we have got support from big internationals, and currently, we work with six big donors, and they support us a lot. And we have a very diverse programme and a lot of.. Honestly, we have a lot of resources and we spend it especially for supporting women and children.
Yuliia Chykol'ba 8:37
Yuliyah, you told us what donors require from you. But what is it you as an organisation want from the donor?
Yuliyah Sporych 8:44
What I communicate with international partners is flexible funding, more trust, and overhead. We had 10 big projects last year and only two of these projects had overhead. So thanks to my previous experience, my connection to private sectors, I have private donations from corporations and businesses. And this money provide the flexible funding, and I can spend it on NGO needs or beneficiary needs or education or something. Like as an example, we're also Ukrainian staff, but we don't have insurance. And when I put these expenses to the budget, usually they decline. All international staff who are currently deployed to Ukraine have this insurance but my local staff who work in dangerous conditions not so far from from frontline, or, anyway, they are unsecured, and when I would like to buy for us an insurance, I can do it from project money, for example. We know how to report. We know how to prepare financial documents. We know how to write. You do not need to send to me three different kinds of monitorings or auditors. Please send one or you don't need to send me each month a new team where I am to explain what we are doing and why we decided to operate especially in these regions and so on. Just, okay, we are very open, very transparent. Come and see what we're doing. But don't just annoy me on this. It's the first team, the second team, the third team, and it's a three months project and three monitor visits from three different teams.
Lars Peter Nissen:What's your thinking on trust? Where does that actually come from? Who trusts you and who don't trust you?
Yuliyah Sporych:My personal opinion is that people who work in Ukraine and who travel a lot and live in local contexts, they have much more trust to us than to people who are sitting in Berlin in New York, Geneva, who have never been to Ukraine, who don't know what does it mean to be in Kharkiv or in Kiev during these air alarms or bombshelling? And so when they see what is going on underground, they don't have a lot of questions as to why you need flexible funding?
Lars Peter Nissen:Have you ever sent money back, simply said to one of your donors, no, you know what, we don't work like that. Here's your money.
Yuliyah Sporych:Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was one time with German money. It was a very, very small contract, and we signed it. And then for six weeks, we can't procure food, kids due to so strong procedures, and then one day we said, okay, stop. We can't spend six weeks of my team just for procurement, please. I would like to send your money back, because it's just impossible
Lars Peter Nissen:How did they react to that?
Yuliyah Sporych:Well they changed their procurement policy. It's very, it's very, it's very easy. Because I have power and they have resources to fight. And for me, it's not a problem to send you money back. Because if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And I don't want to spend my time do some useless things. I have a lot of other projects. Honestly, right now we have a line of partners who would like to work with us. And now we can choose with whom we would like to move on.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Yuliyah, your story is a really powerful story of a strong voice of civil society. And I bet you're not the only one there. So can you tell us a bit more about, like, collaboration on advocacy and policy development from the Ukrainian civil society? So that you're heard in this choir of international organisations?
Yuliyah Sporych:Yeah, we have had that experience among woman-led NGOs, or feministic NGOs. And we had some advocacy campaigns, like, in small working groups, but also in the summer, we signed the big letter to donors that you need to understand local context and to work with local partners more. And I know that right now, it will be the second letter, and we also supported it. And also we have, like, mostly, the most effective work is in the small working groups. And when we, when we work with cluster systems, we also try to advocate our interests. A simple example is English translation. And most of clusters in Ukraine was conducted in English and a lot of smaller organisations, they don't have staff who can speak English. So it means that they were excluded from this conversation, and we had no voice from the ground. And then finally, in six or eight months, we managed to push this interpretation on the cluster meetings, for example. But at the same time, we are not so successful in terms of advocating some changes in food kit components or hygiene kit components, because, like, for example, my beneficiaries are women with children. It means that when she receives a food kit, we usually have a small kit in one hand, and the bigger one in the other hand and then she could carry 30 kilogrammes back. It's just impossible. And we told it to our partner, and somehow they managed to change the weight to 15. So we deliver often, but less, and it's very simple. When you understand very clearly who is your beneficiary, you know what you need. At the same station when we talk to older women, they have bad eyes, but can feed very well. And they need the completely different gadgets. Or even sometimes they need an ordinary phone. And when we ask that we would like to procure not tablets or smartphones, we need just ordinary phones for grandmothers, they were so surprised. Because you need to feel your beneficiary whom you support, and then you can adjust. And if we're talking about teenage girls, they have different request on dignity kids, and we conduct a needs assessment with teenage girls, asking what you would like to have in these dignity kits. And of course, there were nothing about washing powder or sponges, no, they would like to have some water, some makeup, some cream, and so on. But for now, we are not successful to change this cluster recommendation on dignity kits. But we have results of research, because we asked what would you like to have, because they answer, and it's different stories and not just ordinary kitchen kits. So, step by step, we will implement these changes. But honestly, it takes for me a lot of resources, because I am fighting for better solutions, for better projects. I don't want to do typical difficult projects, because now, we just don't have ordinary people.
Lars Peter Nissen:Alright, so there's a lot here, Yuliia. First of all, just recognising how powerful your namesake, Yuliia is. It was just wonderful to talk to her. And to feel the professionalism coming out from every single thing she spoke about. The first thing that really impressed me was the way they scaled up in response to the invasion. We know that gender-based violence skyrockets when something like this happens. And there's been quite a lot of news about the vulnerability of girls and women travelling alone out of the country, being potentially victims of traffickers and so on. And it was fantastic to hear how clear her thinking were was about the two pivots they had to make on one side scaling up massively and secondly, switching into a much more service delivery oriented modality providing hygiene packages, food, dignity packages, instead of having been sort of a more traditional NGO with a developmental focus on education and advocacy. That truly impressed me the way she managed that.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Yeah, I agree. And I think that's what we discussed, like, the Ukrainian situation is not unique, in a way, but it's very.. The fact that civil society was formed in Ukraine way before the invasion. It actually adds on and I can build up on it, because civil society in Ukraine didn't start on 24th of February. Civil society in Ukraine didn't start in 2014. Actually, like we have a long story of protest movements in the 90s into the 00s. And it was like a constant formation of these networks and of the civil society organisations that are actually good for us now. Now we have strong capacitated organisations like Yuliyah's. And after the war will be won, these organisations will be those who will continue to exist and who will be working with the government and sometimes, to be honest, against the government.
Lars Peter Nissen:It's interesting because this Ukrainian exceptionalism that is sort of lurking under the surface all the time, what is that actually? And I've been thinking a lot about that, because there's a tendency to say, well, you know, we have very strong organisations in Ukraine. And I agree with that 200%. But I've seen very strong organisations in all the countries I've worked in, and I've seen civil society with very deep roots and playing a very strong role. And so I've been thinking a lot about what's different here, right? Why does this feel different? And when I heard Yuliyah say, you know, let's hope we win the war this year, let's hope we finish the war this year, it suddenly struck me how much agency there is in that. Because I think most of the other places I worked in, it was not like you could see and end to things. It was not like you were thinking, okay, give it a year, give it 18 months, then we will be out of this conflict and then we can get back to business and build up the country. But that's clearly what she was saying. And I thought maybe it's that mindset, that hope or that... It's not even a hope it's just almost an assumption or a, Yeah. It's okay, we're gonna get this over with and then we fall back in our traditional role.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Yeah, and I think this agency..It's kind of mainstreamed through the whole narratives and communications that are coming from the civil society in Ukraine, and then this agency that every single citizen is kind of feeling responsible for the successful outcome and for the end of suffering, which for many, many people in Ukraine means the victory. And, and I really want to draw attention to this letter from the civil society organisations from the NGOs that was openly publicly shared with the donor community and international NGOs. It clearly stated the problems that we already outlined, but already, it offer solutions, actually, on a way as to how partnerships should be formed. And one of the big part of this is basically going beyond neutrality to solidarity.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, it was a very powerful letter, it was signed by almost 100 different organisations and a number of individuals on top of that. And as you say, it basically says three things. Cut the bureaucracy, let local civil society set the priorities and let us decide how we want to act in solidarity. And then thirdly, let us tell our own story, don't define us to your stories. This is our history, this is our story. And if you let us do that, that'll give a deeper understanding of who we are and help us access more resources directly.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:I think the big part of it was also about building capacity and this is something I want to actually emphasise through Yuliyah's conversation because there are organisations who are coming and they have their own view on building capacity of organisations of already very capacitated organisations, just because you know, they did it in some other countries, probably, or they just habitually doing it for everyone. And the capacity is high, the capacity is already there. It's maybe actually time to listen to the local organisations, what they want to build on capacity. And of course, the critical component is time, right? That's what we were talking about. Last episode, talkers talk, and warriors fight and organisations do not have time to wait for the lengthy processes, the architecture system.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yes, time is of the essence and you could sense the urgency in Yuliyah's voice as she was speaking. I thought she was very clear in how she laid out her expectations to her partners. It's around flexible funding, it's about overheads. But then really interestingly about trust. And I think this thing of what is trust, how do you actually trust each other when you enter into a partnership? What makes you capable of trusting? And if I heard her correctly, she said, you know, if people understand our context, they also understand how we behave. Whereas if you sit in Geneva as I do, and you've never been to Ukraine, as I've never been, it is, of course, more difficult to really empathise and understand the pressure that civil societies are under.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Yeah, I agree. And I think, like, what is important here is the mutual trust. Because we also when we spoke to Yuliyah, she was very vocal about the instances when they ended funding from certain contracts, just because they didn't have any phase in actual help to be delivered. And the timing here is also pretty depressing.
Lars Peter Nissen:What I really liked about the way she deals with it is the assertiveness that she she acts with, right? So when she sends back money to some German organisation, that organisation actually changes their procurement rules, showing you that the things that are often portrayed as, Oh, this is just the way things are, we have to do that, can actually be modified. And she took it a step further when she started talking about some of the interlocutors being passive aggressive to local staff, and that she will sometimes jump in on the call and simply challenge that person and say, no, that's not how we work. This is not the partnership we want. It's a great example of how to build an equal partnership and how not to let money run things. And it's a very delicate and difficult thing to handle. I've been on the donor site in a number of operations where I've had to build trust In relationships with local partners sometimes failing, right. Sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding. But it's difficult from both sides. And it's so much easier when you have a strong, principled voice like Yuliyah's on the other end of the equation.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:I agree. And they think if you dive deeper into Yuliyah's profile, right? It's a female-led, feminist organisation. And you have to understand the context in Ukraine. The majority of civil society organisations are inherently fighting for human rights inherently antagonising, I would say, the government normally. And challenging government on so many instances, whether it's a women's rights, whether it's corruption, anti-corruption processes, whether it's human rights. So her character was, you know, built over years and years of this challenging. Do you really think that she would not be able to challenge some international system, especially considering that, let's be very fair, and she was very vocal about it, they have a queue of of donors and partners.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah but it is somewhat more difficult to tell a passive aggressive donor to go jump in the lake if you don't have that line of other partners waiting outside. And is that dependency that very often produces those unequal relationships, unfortunately.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:But look, I think what is very important here, and this is what Anastasia was talking us to the previous episode. That's what Yulyah talked us through in this episode. There is a stream of funding that is other than big international aid. There is a lot of private funding, there is a lot of crowdfunding going on. There are a lot of Ukrainians who are donating, there a lot of diaspora who are donating. And, I think, to save and protect this funding, this is partly why is this letter of the civil society was written. Because if the Ukrainian civil society controls the narrative towards, let's say, the outside world, they have this opportunity to crowdfund, not to big international UN agencies or NGOs or saying like, oh, donate to us, we will do something. No, they are the small agencies, small NGOs, or big national NGOs, have an opportunity to have this flexible private funding or other funding.
Lars Peter Nissen:One thing I also found really interesting about Yuliyah's perspective was the way in which she's pushing to adapt aid. The example that stood out to me was this business of, if you are a Ukrainian teenage girl, and you give a dignity package, they would want to makeup in that dignity package. That is important for them. She also spoke about how food packages were 30 kilos, and that's simply too heavy for a single mother to carry. So instead, they are now doing twice as many distributions with 15 kilos every time which makes it more manageable. And this focus on really empathising with and understanding the people you serve, came across very strongly in what she said. And at the same time, I could feel my old humanitarian sort of pop up in the, you know, in the back of my mind thinking, we're talking about the same money that goes to stop children from starving in Somalia. It basically comes from the same package, and here we are talking about makeup. Is that really a humanitarian thing to cover? And I don't have a great, great answer to that. But I think there is an issue around global impartiality in terms of how much support is given to Ukraine versus to other parts of the world where we also see quite serious humanitarian situations.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Look, I agree that we have a foundation of humanitarian aid, right, to which I partly disagree of reinstating the status quo that was before the catastrophy, right. And, I mean, objectively, we can't compare Ukraine to Somalia economically, same as we can't compare Ukraine to, I don't know, to Switzerland economically. So I would kind of stand by Yuliyah's side on this because we're talking about dignity here. We're not talking about survival. They are very similar concepts, but two different concepts. And I really liked the point from her side that we know our beneficiary, we know what they need. They don't need a bag of rice, which in Ukraine, we really seldomly eat, actually. We do need something different and listen to your beneficiary and be in touch with them because we are the same, we know what is happening. So I think that's, that's a very important point from her side
Lars Peter Nissen:I fully agree with that. And I just want to say that my point is not that it's wrong, what Julia is pushing for. It was more a reflection from my side around global impartiality and, and how do you actually compare these different crises? I don't have a great answer to that. But that popped into my mind.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:But I think it's a broader discussion about the inequalities in the world, right. And whether we as humanitarians are actually in a position to address them.
Lars Peter Nissen:Listening to you, I'm thinking that what's really different in Ukraine is the power relation. Because I've met Yuliyah in Honduras, I've met Yuliyah in South Africa and in Zimbabwe, and you have these extremely powerful civil society leaders across the world. I think the difference is the dependency on funding. I'm sure that some of the people I worked with wanted to tell me to go take my money and fly back home. But if they did that, they would have to fire a good deal of their staff, they will not be able to help as many people as they would otherwise and that that's actually what puts such a responsibility on you as a donor when you come that you have to empathise, you have to understand that dependency. And you really have to listen. So that you don't just hear yourself talking.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Yeah, I see. But like, let's be very realistic. And I just want to sober up. This is a temporary situation was funding. And we all know that, that humanitarian funding are not going to flow in Ukraine on this massive scale for a very long time. So, I would kind of disagree. I would kind of disagree with your reasoning a bit, because, and correct me if I'm wrong, like, the civil society which is normally, again, fighting, not antagonising, challenging the government, and then jumps in the humanitarian response on that massive scale. They did it for years and years, they were working with government, but at the same time, they were like, you know, fighting for certain laws, fighting for certain politics. And it is like a bit of fun. I think it's a bit in the blood of Ukrainians to kind of antagonise the power, the big power. And now, that's why these voices are successful, but also how successful they are. We talked in the last episode, like less than 1% of aid is going actually to local partners. How successful is she.
Lars Peter Nissen:Of course, what was really interesting about Yuliyah shift in strategy where she steps in and takes a more service delivery oriented approach, starts working with humanitarian aid is that she does that because a gap appears in society. Because the war escalates, millions of people are displaced, and the government is overwhelmed. So she has to redefine her position vis-a-vis the government, where previously it was through education to advocacy, they tried to influence and change, create behavioural change. Now, you actually go in and substitute what under normal circumstances the government would do.
Yuliyah Sporych:Yeah. And they think like, the picture will never be full. If we don't look at the government's standing and positioning here, because it's not everything that the government can and should cover but it's very important to understand where is the space for government and why they're doing what they're doing. So that we would not miss the core component of the response to the needs in Ukraine before we jump into any other substitutions or aid systems. And I think for this, we have a really honest and and eloquent speaker from the Ministry of Reintegration of Temporary Occupied Territories. Oleksandr Riabtsev who is a dear friend and who is heading their demining department. So let's just hear what he has to say about the government response.
Oleksandr Riabtsev:Our minister is part of the government. The Minister of Reintegration is interacting with humanitarian aid, with humanitarian organisation. We have even the cooperation with humanitarian organisations prescribed in the articles of the foundation of our ministry. So we have a few paragraphs which state that we are developing the cooperation with mine action operators, with humanitarian organisations, with specific, with ICRC for instance, which is our great partner on the humanitarian frontier. And on different aspects of the humanitarian response, which is also mine action response. We interact with other ministries who are involved in different types and fields of mine action pillars implementation, and also with mine action INGOs, NGOs, which are registered in Ukraine as operators of mine action, according to Ukrainian law. This is the specific procedures. People or organisations which can come to you and say that I want to help, I want to give you money for some projects. Just give me the information or data on what I need for my project and I will work with the solution by myself. But in this case, we we don't work like this, but we try to clarify whether the organisation or the donor who wants to involve with humanitarian issues in Ukraine has real experience and real recognition on the global scale as the organisation who works in this specific field of operations. People are listening to us, they don't listen to ICRC and Halo Trust, they are listening to us because the we are the representatives of the government. And when we say something that will not be performed, the people will accuse us, not Halo Trust or ICRC, whom they don't know. They will say that we promised them as a government something and that something didn't come to them. So this is like the tricky point we have when cooperating with humanitarian organisation while cooperating on the humanitarian projects from the sides of the government. But anyway, we have a perfect cooperation with all acknowledged and certified humanitarian organisations in Ukraine.
Lars Peter Nissen:Let's say a humanitarian organisation comes and says, Oh, you know, we went to the territory occupied by the Russians. And we helped the people there,. There were some people who wanted to leave, so we helped evacuate them. But there were also some people who wanted to stay on their farms. There were some people who were wounded. And there were some people who didn't want to leave the territory, because they said, you know, this is my home, I don't want to leave. We would like to help those people. And so what is the policy of the Ukrainian government? Is it, No, we don't think you should help these people stay in the territories, they need to be evacuated, or is it, if they need help, they should get help?
Oleksandr Riabtsev:These people can be helped only by means of this organisation on their own. And we cannot control how this help, how this aid and support will be disseminated in the territories which we don't control. So, maybe this organisation has some money, has some donorship means, and they say that they want to help these people, but in fact, this money and this aid will be stolen by the Russian forces or the collaborants which are working with the Russian forces. So, we cannot even encourage these activities because we cannot control how this aid is disseminated there. As as I told you, there are many organisations who come to the government or to our ministry specifically and say that we want to help your accident victims on the controlled territory of Ukraine, on the territory of Ukraine, which is under the control of the government. But when I asked them, what is your documentation, what are your project documents which are saying clearly that you want to provide this or this or this type of help, medical help, social adaptation help, some surgical operation help, or some startup for persons with disabilities opening help? They don't have any answers. They don't have even any projects on this. So how can I know that you really want to help and you are ready to implement your help to these people. The same as when people come and ask about his willingness and he's trying to help people on the uncontrolled territories of Ukraine, I don't know. And any government authority will not know whether this is a real help or just the words which cannot be implemented due to this process not being controlled on the territories which fall under the Russian occupation. This is not the matter, that we don't want to help our people there. This is the matter that we don't control processes there. That's why we try to help, by any means, to evacuate people from from that side.
Yuliyah Sporych:Oleksandr, let me just tweak a bit Lars Peter's question. Do you know about any instances when reputable humanitarian organisation was prevented of working in Ukrainian controlled areas just because they were working in occupied areas before?
Oleksandr Riabtsev:If an organisation was and still is working on the other side, just for clearly humanitarian needs to assist people to evacuate from this territories or to participate in the projects like exchanging of the prisoners of war or visiting the prisons where our civilians and soldiers are kept, like ICRC for instance. We know that ICRC they have their personnel and staff on that side, but they work clearly for humanitarian needs. They don't have any collaboration with that side which counteracts the strategies of our government to assist and help Ukrainian nationals to evacuate and to be liberated from the territories which fell under control of Russians. As I told, we know the portfolio's of all the organisations from the beginning. And if an organisation has some collaboration with the Russian authorities or the authorities who are collaborants of Russians on the uncontrolled territory of Ukraine, they fall under investigation of our special security services.
Lars Peter Nissen:I thought Oleksandr was really interesting. So great to hear his perspective. I mean, the first impression you get, of course, is that of a highly, highly competent civil servant. Clearly top shelf, on top of his things, he's worked internationally, Libya, Somalia, he understands the mining, he understands international players. So clearly, just great to have somebody like that to work with. Then secondly, just a crystal clear understanding, firstly, of the quality that they require from humanitarian actors. We don't want clowns. That's basically what he's saying. We know who the professional actors are, we are happy to work with them. He really praises their work and says we couldn't meet the targets we have without that assistance. So fantastic that we have such a great set of actors to work with. But if somebody shows up and says, I have money, let me do something. No, we need to know that you can do it. I think that came across very clearly.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Yeah, which is excellent. I think there are numerous examples in many countries of how much harm can be done, actually, by a bunch of amateurs who don't necessarily know what they're doing. And it is good that Ukraine is fairly well positioned in terms of, again, let's come back to the agency being able to actually assess the quality of these organisations or individuals or funding streams, right. And then decide which ones should go where. And I think what was very important, what he said, is about the organisations coming and asking for data, right? And because, yes, the government has that, but like, Ukraine has very strict personal data protection laws, not more relaxed than anywhere in Europe, for example, in the European Union. And it is a responsibility of the government to protect its citizens from the misuse of this data, for example. So I think this position, this standing is very strong and very right.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yeah, I totally agree. There's no doubt that the government needs to protect its citizens. And just because you come from the outside and call yourself a humanitarian, you can't just walk all over the place and do whatever you want, you can do a lot of harm, as you say. And so I think that professional approach to the people they work with, or the institution they work with, is really positive. It was also so interesting to hear him talk about the social contract between the government and its citizens, saying, you know, people don't remember Halo Trust and ICRC, they remember the government. They come to us, they look to us for services. And so, anything that's done on our territory, that is our responsibility. We must quality assure that or it comes back and bites us later, right. And that's exactly what a government should do. Protect its citizens and deliver services perfect.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Which is a very strong position. The key is for the government to be able to do that, right. And let's be fair, Ukraine is one of the fairly unique situation of a very strong functioning government that is still in the midst of war and humanitarian response is massive, right. But the government remained kind of untouched since the full scale invasion. And the people who were there, politicians were there for a while, or they have the relevant expertise. I would not go as far as to say that the whole government would be as strong as Oleksandr, right. We would have instances that can be very different.
Lars Peter Nissen:I think the situation is clear in the territory controlled by Ukraine. There, I don't think there is an issue there. The government is in control has a clear framework for how to work with humanitarians, great. Then we come to the issue of the conflict areas and the territories controlled by Russia. And, of course, this is where again, he's very clear, he's saying, basically, we appreciate help evacuating people, we appreciate help to the wounded and to prisoner exchange, in particular ICRC, the special mandate they have, the Geneva Conventions that we have signed. All of that he appreciates, understands and really works with. And then we move into the space where I as the old paranoid humanitarian, of course, becomes a bit worried. Because then he goes something along the lines of, but we don't know what you're doing in that territory. And we can't do that quality assurance we can do where we control the situation. And so, I can't really... He's in between, we can't really say anything about that and we will investigate you if you do something we don't like in those territories. On one side, of course, that's very natural, and atrocities are being carried out that should be investigated, and the perpetrators should be prosecuted for what they've done in those areas. At the same time, of course, it makes me nervous to hear Government speak like that. Because where is that line?
Yuliia Chykol'ba:Look, I agree, and I totally agree. But also, we have to understand the position of the government, who wants to be in control of the destiny, you know, of their own citizens. But at the same time, like, I would actually argue that the station is not that bad, because we have, we have a history, right. We have a history of large international NGOs working in the non-government control areas back in 2014. And I think, beginning of 2015, there were offices in Donetsk, there were offices in Luhansk. And then they were told by the by the people who controlled the situation there to leave these areas practically overnight. And these big international NGOs are successfully working now in Ukraine and scaling up and working on humanitarian response. They were not kicked out of the Ukrainian government controlled territory. They were actually appreciated and collaborating with Ukrainian government, even after they have a extensive history of working in non-government control areas.
Lars Peter Nissen:For me, I'm not entirely sure where that stands. And I'm not sure how it will evolve over time. And it's probably that last bit that worries me more, right. I think what we have to recognise is that that tension is there. And part of being a humanitarian is pushing those boundaries and exploring those spaces for operation. I think that's important. There was another aspect that I thought was really interesting here where you can see the craftsmanship if you want of ICRC. He knows exactly what they're doing. That's very clear. He's comfortable with the work they're doing there. They're clearly humanitarian. We do not have a problem with this. And of course, that position comes from a lot of work from ICRC side in terms of mobilising, and making it known to all sides in the conflict, because they do exactly the same on the Russian side, speaking to everybody about what they actually do. Back to the famous handshake that you were not a big fan of in episode one, but maybe let's leave that. For me, the real message here is that through that traditional, strong humanitarian approach that is based on neutrality, you can actually make a government understand why you are there and why you are also on the other side. And that open spaces.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:I totally agree. And I think this is something that is attributed to ICRC specifically as in the mandate that is outlined in Geneva Convention. Because, like, we we clearly heard from Oleksandnr that the government is comfortable with facilitating of prisoners exchange, the government is comfortable with detention visits. The government is very comfortable with evacuation. And this is something that you will have mentioned as well, because there are organisations who are working in evacuation and facilitate evacuation of the Ukrainian citizens from occupied areas. I'm not convinced that it would work in any other humanitarian assistance. So I would keep this for ICRC to be honest.
Lars Peter Nissen:I think it's been extremely helpful to listen to Yuliyah and Oleksandr and really understand the civil society government dynamics in Ukraine a bit better. I think you're really right in emphasising, look, these things did not start in 2022. They have been going on for a long time, we have a strong history of challenging government, challenging power, opening spaces. And we will go back to doing that once this war is over. That's such a clear frame to have this discussion inside. And I just hope that of course, the war will be over soon, and that we will not be seeing a protracted crisis, right.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:I kind of think that we would have another like, middle life crisis, when we will be moving from the pure humanitarian, and we are already slowly moving from the pure humanitarian to kind of more development and early recovery assistance, right. And then, we will continue facing these challenges. Both we as Ukrainian national civil society, both we as international humanitarian aid system, and both we as government and most of all, both we as citizens. And I think it's going to be a continuing situation. What is important here, and what I heard very clearly from both Ukrainian speakers here today, I think we have agency, we have enough power to speak up, and to have this control over the narrative. What is important for Ukrainian civil society and Ukrainian government as well is to be heard. So we can't speak into the void. And even if we have all sorts of powers in the world, if we're not heard, it's going to be very problematic to control and to, you know, to stay on top of this wave as Ukrainian civil society as Ukrainian responders in general.
Lars Peter Nissen:Yuliia, thank you for another great discussion. I really enjoyed our talk today. I look forward to next week where finally we'll try to get into the Land Cruiser and on that Safari and meet some of the new strange animals in the humanitarian ecosystem. Let's hope we manage to do that next week.
Yuliia Chykol'ba:I don't think we will nut at least we will definitely still have our open and honest conversation about the humanitarian aid and Ukrainian crisis and thank you so much.
Lars Peter Nissen:This episode was produced with support from CARE Denmark. Our producers Denise Kjeldsen, research by Caroline Thorsen and our sound engineer is Agustin Libratore. If you'd like to show let us know what you think on social media. You can find us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And if you really, really like to show, why don't you give us a donation through our website trumanitarian.org where we have a PayPal link.