Standing with the Civilian Population in Ukraine

"Kyiv may look like an ordinary European city, but beneath the surface lies fear and daily sirens," explains Lene Wetteland, Head of the Documentation and Accountability Hub at the Norwegian Helsinki Committee and lead for the committee's documentation and advocacy work.

Over four years have passed since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since then, daily life in a city like Kyiv has seemingly returned to normal. For several months, the city was subjected to continuous missile attacks, and alarms warning of strikes still go off several times a day.

In a meeting with Wetteland, one quickly gets an impression of the courage, solidarity, and suffering that characterise daily life for millions of people in Ukraine. Along with her colleague Gunnar M. Ekeløve-Slydal, Deputy Secretary General of the Helsinki Committee, she recently returned from a week-long stay in Kyiv.

A Night in the Bomb Shelter

How people react during an attack depends on both the time of day and the type of missile.

"When a ballistic missile alarm goes off at night, people run to the bomb shelters. During the day, the locals assess the situation and offer advice on what to do," she says.

During her stay, Wetteland was fortunate and only had to spend one night underground. As a Russian speaker, she could communicate easily with the local population, who are often bilingual.

"Even on that night, several people died on the outskirts of Kyiv," she explains.

For the Helsinki Committee, the stay was about more than just observation. The committee operates two main programmes for its work in Ukraine: the Nansen Programme, which focuses on anti-corruption, women's rights, and investigative journalism, and a documentation programme for war crimes and serious human rights violations.

The Nansen Support Programme for Ukraine is Norway's long-term framework for supporting Ukraine in response to Russia's full-scale invasion.

Through its documentation work, the committee gathers information that can later be used in international legal proceedings.

"When we identify those responsible for atrocities, we produce detailed briefs for human rights sanctions against the perpetrators. This has tangible consequences, such as the freezing of assets and travel restrictions for individuals," she says.

For several years, Wikborg Rein has collaborated closely with the Helsinki Committee on various human rights projects. Our lawyers contributed, among other things, with legal analyses in two different reports concerning the impact of sanctions.

Read more:  
The Norwegian Sanctions Act – Den norske Helsingforskomité
The Russia sanctions as a human rights instrument: Violations of export controls regarding war-critical goods to Russia

During their recent visit to Ukraine, the committee also received a clear status report from the people living with the war every day.

"The Ukrainians have endured a harsh winter, with major challenges related to the lack of power supply. Among those we met, we experienced a mix of optimism and exhaustion," Wetteland explains.

According to her, the importance of maintaining continuous contact with local partners cannot be understated.

Assisting civilians in captivity

She believes it is vital to shine a light on the many civilians being held in captivity by the Russian authorities.

"We hear quite a lot about both Ukraine and Russia having prisoners of war who can be exchanged. However, Russia has also imprisoned a large number of civilians, particularly in occupied territories, and these individuals are not covered by any international regulatory framework. We are talking about, for example, teachers and nurses who are being detained illegally. They can be held for long periods, often under inhumane conditions. We also know that several have been killed and buried in mass graves, especially during the first weeks of the occupation," says Wetteland.

In addition, thousands of Ukrainian children have been kidnapped from occupied areas. They are often found in orphanages across Russia, and many are put up for adoption by Russian families.

Consequently, the exact number of Ukrainian civilians in Russian captivity remains uncertain, but it is clear that the figure runs into the thousands. Wetteland points out that while there are support schemes for prisoners of war returning to society, civilians in the same situation do not have the same level of support.

"Even if these civilians have not been in active combat at the front, they have often been isolated and tortured in prison, and subjected to both physical and psychological torture," Wetteland explains. "Civil society in Ukraine represents a crucial force in upholding human rights in the midst of the war."

Critical when necessary

The Helsinki Committee also stands firmly on the side of civil society in cases where they believe the Ukrainian authorities are not doing enough to combat corruption or to protect the human rights of their own population.

"Ukrainian organisations uphold human rights, even when it is unpopular to do so. They balance loyalty with criticism," says Wetteland.

Ukraine is still described as one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, but in the heat of the war, the population has shown that the principles they demonstrated for in 2013 and 2014 still hold true - they will not tolerate corruption.

"For us, too, it is therefore important to balance loyalty with criticism where necessary. Only then can we defend the extensive, and highly necessary, support from Norway and other European countries," Wetteland concludes.