Policy Q&A: Nobel Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk on Ukraine, Human Rights and Winning the War
Ukrainian civil society was hardly surprised when the Center for Civil Liberties and its founder, Oleksandra Matviichuk, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022. Instead, this award was perceived as a natural choice.
After all, Oleksandra and her organization defended the rights of Maidan activists during the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-2014 and fought for the release of dozens of prisoners of war from Russian captivity. One of her most famous cases was the release of Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, who spent five years in a Russian prison.
Today, the work of the Center focuses on documenting war crimes committed by Russians against the civilian population of Ukraine. Since the beginning of the war, the organization and its network of partners have reported more than 70,000 such cases.