On Monday, December 11, 2023, a round table was held in the Senate on the documentation of war crimes and the effects of Russian aggression on the cultural heritage and environment of Ukraine. Petr Pojman and Adam Sybera from Team4Ukraine have been involved in the monitoring of war crimes in Ukraine for a long time.
The round table was the final accompanying program of the exhibition of a unique collection of photographs from Kharkiv and the Kharkiv region. The photographs in the exhibition came from the Ukrainian organization Maidan Monitoring Information Center and the Czech photographer Ivy Zimová. Senator Marek Hilšer took over the patronage of the exhibition and the round table.
It was he who started the meeting: "While preparing the opening, I said that it would be good to meet and talk about the situation in Ukraine and how to help it and how you are helping it."
At the senator's call, the chairman of the Team4Ukraine association, criminologist Petr Pojman, took the floor: "The situation we are observing today on the Ukrainian battlefield gives an answer to the question of why the Russian leadership has purposefully cultivated violent and criminal subcultures." The traditional criminal underworld is involved in the aggression against Ukraine. Prigozhin, who organized recruitment, equipped troops and led his private army to war, was just the tip of the iceberg," he said at the beginning of his post, adding: "Every euro, every dollar invested in the defense of Ukraine saves lives here in the West."
According to Pojman, the Russian regime feels threatened by any manifestation of freedom, because at this moment it is already a fascist regime, based on the leadership principle, nationalism, militarism, the cult of death, power and dominance. During the aggression against Ukraine, there was and still is massive abuse of young soldiers who are motivated financially, or soldiers with a criminal past who need to satisfy their deviant needs. "The problem of the first days was the complete lack of people who would record war crimes, people wanted to save their lives," Petr Pojman added to the testimony. As an example of a war crime, he cited a situation where a specific person decides to bomb or shell a civilian object, issues an order to do so, and a pilot or soldier, knowing that it is a civilian target, carries it out. And these specific people need to be tracked down. In this way, Team4Ukraine assisted, for example, in the collection of evidence, on the basis of which there is a suspicion of committing the crime of waging an aggressive war by General Andrey Ruzinsky. "There is no one against us with whom we can make an agreement, a compromise. If Ukraine were to fall, there would be a war with NATO," concluded Petr Pojman.
The speech of Ms. Tatiana Pryvalikina, who lost her loved ones in Izjum, had a very emotional impact on those present. She described how people hid in the basements of houses before the bombing, and these houses, where there were no soldiers or weapons, were the targets of the raids. 6. 3. 2022 I spoke to my mother for the last time. She was hidden in the basement of the house. We never saw each other again. On March 9, 2022, the Russians were supposed to make a green corridor for the safe exit of people, but they didn't do that and bombed the city instead. People had no chance to save themselves. Families from the neighborhood died. One little girl was only three years old." Mrs. Pryvalikina thanked the Czech Republic for the help and at the same time expressed a wish: "We ask the Czech Republic and all democratic countries to continue to support Ukraine, because it is our only hope. War is terrible.”
Přemysl Šedý, who is the guarantor of the Božena project in Team4Ukraine, spoke about the massive mining of Ukraine. "Russia uses all types of ammunition, including prohibited ones. Mina remains active decades after placement. Tens of thousands of square kilometers are mined, the ammunition pollution is comparable to the situation after 1945. In addition to the mines themselves, artillery ammunition is also a problem, 10-30% of which does not explode upon impact." According to Šédy, the Russians are purposefully mining private and public buildings and destroying infrastructure. As an example, he cites the targeted liquidation of drinking water supply facilities in Kherson. According to him, the mining of huge areas also has other effects, for example, food is missing from the mined fields. In cooperation with Gift for Putin, Team4Ukraine managed to collect 650,000 in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. euro for the purchase of the demining machine Božena 5. In places outside the front line, demining is the responsibility of the firefighters, and it is for them that the machine from the contributions of Slovak and Czech donors is intended. Overall, Přemysl Šédý evaluated the current situation by saying: "We are in the same situation as the West was in 1938. Only this time it is not Czechoslovakia, but Ukraine."
Deník N reporter Dominika Píhová, who accompanied Petr Pojman and Adam Syber during their work, also shared her observations from the October monitoring mission. As she said, she had no experience with Eastern Ukraine until then, and she considers it important for journalists to write about the places they saw and the people they met. "I was interested in how the Czech group intervenes in the monitoring of war crimes. Over the course of two weeks, we monitored several impacts on residential buildings. In Hroza, a Russian rocket killed a third of the population of the village, which will never be the same again. War is not just a front line, it is a marathon, it will take years to change the situation. It was important for me to realize how violence and crimes affect not only the present but also the future.” She also described the fact how the media focuses mainly on well-known places and big cities, and the stories of hundreds, maybe even thousands of small villages remain invisible. They too are affected by the worst, most brutal crimes. "Locals take the presence of Czech analysts as a guarantee that the court will one day judge war crimes fairly. Team4Ukraine does a good job, documenting people's testimonies. There are so many crimes that a huge human capacity is needed and to achieve justice it is necessary to prepare now when the crimes are happening and the Ukrainian Prosecutor's Office shows us that it is successful and we can be a part of it as part of Team4Ukraine ," added Dominika Píhová's observations.
David Stulík, security analyst and co-chairman of the Czech-Ukrainian Forum, followed up on the topic of justice: "Last October, after the rocket attacks on Kyiv, I attended a meeting of Ukrainian and German parliamentarians. When they were shown videos from their families and friends, I saw for the first time that the Germans realized what was going on, what the Russian regime was all about. The Germans started debating among themselves whether the death of Putin would solve the war, but the Ukrainian parliamentarians stopped them - we are not interested in his death, we are interested in justice, we want to see him before the tribunal." According to Stulík, over 110,000 war crimes have already been registered. The Czech police collects testimonies from refugees, Europol provides analytical and informational assistance, and an OSINT team was established to collect evidence of crimes. The international tribunal would have to have a mandate from the UN and the Security Council, of which Russia is a member. "Justice will take time," Stulík concluded his post.
In his final words, Marek Hilšer thanked everyone who goes to Ukraine and gives testimony for their heroic work. According to him, it is unbelievable what can happen nowadays, it is important to watch it and achieve justice. "I hope one day it will be possible for the truth to prevail and justice to be put on the table," Senator Marek Hilšer, under whose auspices the meeting was held on the floor of the Senate, concluded the discussion.
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