 Yeah, global connections here on sync tick the nine o'clock block on a given Thursday. We are joined by Sylvia Artanetti. She is with Project Expedite Justice, and right now she's in Madrid. Good morning, Sylvia. Good morning, Jay. Thank you for having me here. It's actually afternoon, isn't it? Yes, it's evening. 8 p.m. here for me. Sylvia, you spent a fair amount of time in Ukraine, and you have friends in Ukraine, and you're in touch with them, or at least you have been up to this point. So can you describe, at least from your observation and their comments to you, what it's like? Yeah, indeed, I've lived in Ukraine in Odessa for six months in 2020. I was an intern there and had the opportunity to meet a lot of students from the area and made a lot of great friendships. At the moment, the situation is very critical. It's near to a human catastrophe, and my friends, some of them have taken up arms and others are in bomb shelters. I have two friends from my hometown in Italy, because in Italy we have a big Ukrainian community who left Italy soon before the beginning of the recent escalation, so a week ago, to get their documents from Ukraine, and unfortunately they got stuck there. They are students in Italy and their mother is in Italy. I talked to them yesterday, luckily they're in the western part of Ukraine, that right now is still relatively safe, but they are scared. Obviously like everyone else, they have to go to shelter, bomb shelters when the Syrian goes off, and the situation is very critical. Yesterday we actually got to talk, and they tried to explain me the situation and what they're going through. So if I may, I would like to report some of their thoughts of what's happening. Please. So I'll be translating from Italian because they sent me the message in Italian, but they said in Kiev from the 24th of February, millions of Ukrainians are hiding in bunkers or in underground metropolitan stations. Putin has said that he wouldn't have bombarded the civilians and the residential buildings, only military infrastructure, but in reality already during the second day, we've seen that he's been bombarding everything he sees. Regarding Kharkiv, the last two days, small towns have been bombarded around the city, as well as the entire city infrastructure. For now, Kiev and Kharkiv are the main fighting spots, but they've been bombarded in other cities, like Mariupol, Chernihiv, Kerson, and Zaporizhia. But a lot of people are not escaping, they're not leaving, they said they don't want to leave because this is their home. A lot of people are trying to stop Russian tanks, even without weapons, and simply yelling Slavokraini, glory to Ukraine, and sometimes they managed to stop them. In the West, where I live for now, it's quiet, but people are preparing for the worst. And others, the way they can, they've been volunteering, they've been hosting refugees, they've been preparing food for those who need it in the East. But a lot of Ukrainians have been donating money to the army. For instance, a man, over eight years old, he donated all of his savings, around 100,000 hryvnias, they are like all the money that he has saved in his entire life. But Ukrainians are not giving up, and they are not afraid. The first days of KOS are gone, and now Ukraine is more united than ever against the enemy. So these words really touched me when I read their message, because they're clearly living it in the first person. They're suffering these atrocities. And the other friends are in even worse situations. A friend of mine just told me yesterday that Russian forces entered East Sea Team, and they've been bombarding with everything they can all day long, and they've been just sheltering. He's the same friend that previously told me, and for me that he was going to join the territorial defense to fight for his country and for his family. And right now the situation is that they're trying to gain control of the nuclear plant that is 30 kilometers north of VCT, which is Vosnesensk in the Mikolaj Oblast, which is northeast of Odessa, a bit above, like the north of Kersen. And we spoke while he was in bomb shelter, and he was just about, like as we spoke, they were like managing to exit, but he said it doesn't know what is happening. He doesn't know how to react to it. And he said, I guess killing civilians is just putting style. So clearly my friends are suffering very much, and I'm very worried for them, and for what's to come. Well, that's awful. You know, on some of the points you made, I tell you that this morning Zelensky announced that 16,000 people from outside Ukraine had volunteered to come and fight with the Ukrainian army, and he welcomed them. And there will be more, you know, Sylvia. Yes, absolutely. Everyone is united against Russia right now, trying to help the Ukraine, and Ukrainians that live abroad have been returning to their countries to fight. Even the son of a friend of my mother that managed to leave right before they closed the border, said to adult men that he was thinking himself of going back and taking up arms and defending his country from the invader, from the invader. At the same time, yesterday, Macron had a telephone call with Putin, where Putin indicated that he intended to occupy all of Ukraine. And, you know, the implication is that if he had to blow it all up into a parking lot, he would. So that's consistent with what's happening. And so tragic and irresponsible, incredibly irresponsible. It is a war crime, in my opinion. Is it a war crime in yours? Yes, it absolutely is a war crime. He's been attacking civilians. He's showed no respect for human life. He's been targeting hospitals, as well as administrative buildings and residential buildings. It is certainly war crimes are being committed, which is why we've seen that the ICC getting involved in the matter and opening the prosecutor decided, requested the opening of an investigation. Several referrals by countries that are party to the ICC have been submitted. So now the ICC is ready to start an investigation in war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, possibly. These are like the crimes that they're exploring. And unfortunately, the crime of aggression was outside of the jurisdiction of the ICC because Ukraine is not a party. Neither is Russia. But Ukraine had signed an adult agreement in 2014 following the first round of this war, right? Because this war did not start 18 days ago. This war has been ongoing since 2014, since putting a next crime here. And the investigation was started in the context of the protests, the Euromaidan protests in Kiev. But then it's scope was expanded. This was to cover any crime that's been committed since 2014, including the crimes that are being committed nowadays. Well, you know, one thing about war crimes is you have to have evidence. And until yesterday, evidence was streaming in from all parts of Ukraine by telephone calls, such as the calls that you had, by, by photographs over cell phones and social media, and by video over cell phones and social media to say nothing of television. But it seems like Mr. Putin has woken up to that problem. He wants to stop the flow of evidence, you know, proving war crimes and other communications. So he has started knocking down the cell phone towers. He has tried to turn off the internet, both in Ukraine and, and in Russia by the way, to silence the voices of those who would protest his invasion. And of course, he has knocked over the television towers. So it seems like the evidence that was coming in until yesterday will be constrained going forward. I recall also that at some point Zelensky asked for satellite phones, which would continue to operate even if the cell phone towers were down. I don't know if Ukraine actually got those, but it would seem to me that that the Western Europeans and the U.S. ought to be supplying a lot of satellite phones and supporting the satellite costs on them. Do you know anything about this? Can you talk about how you get evidence out of Ukraine? Yeah, yeah. Indeed, that's potentially be a problem. Luckily, the technology that we have these days, as you mentioned, allows us to gather evidence like directly on the spot and be shared all over the world. Putin's efforts to undermine the sharing of these evidence have been, I've shown their results on his side, but at the same time, evidence will keep flowing. There are a lot of organizations involved from individuals to investigative journalists, to collectives like Bellingath, which is also known for its previous investigation in 2014, about the MH17 downing. They're now tracking the use of cluster munitions in civilian areas, and they're also like built a map tracking all the attacks in the various cities, including video and photo evidence that can later be used in prosecutions, whether at the national or international level. A lot of other efforts have been made by other organizations in creating guides to increase the capacity building of civil society organization individuals that are seeking to document these atrocities. So they're be guided in how to collect these evidence to the standards that are required to possibly convict the perpetrators. So this is certainly a big development. This is also what we need people to keep doing, keep documenting and keep sharing, like sharing everywhere on any social media, wherever they can just spread the truth and unmask also misinformation that is being spread by Russian media. You mentioned cluster bombs, and I'd like to dwell on that for a moment, because I don't think people really understand what it is and what it is intended to do, and what kind of injury, damage, and death it can do. What is a cluster bomb, Sylvia, and why are the Russians using it? Right, by no means an expert on like military warfare, but the use of cluster bombs is particularly damaging to civilians, because it is just a very intense attack that is not per se a breach of international law, though there are some some treaties that prohibit the use of such bombs, indeed because of the damaging potential that they have on civilians, and but neither Russia nor Ukraine are part to our party to this treaty, nonetheless an indiscriminate use of warfare against the civilian population qualifies as a war crime, whether the use of such weapons is per se legal or not. We have a question from one of our viewers Sylvia. Mind you, we were not aware of these most horrendous things when this first started. The jury was out as to whether this was a war against the Ukrainian government, military, or the people on every block. Now that has been shown that it is a war against everyone on every block. And the question here is, so we've had an escalation of the level of violence, the level of attack, the irresponsibility of the instructions to the army, the Russian army. And the question is, will there be an escalation of sanctions applied to Russia for attacking civilians? Because now we know that Russia is directed at attacking civilians. So do you think there should be, there is there an escalation of the sanctions based on that revelation? Yeah, we've certainly seen an escalation in sanctions by several countries, especially the EU, including many other assets have been frozen from the Russian Central Bank, the Ministry of Finance, putting in other high profile figure of the Russian government. And while initially we saw perhaps a slow response, even by European countries, everyone was asking for more sanctions, more effective responses. So we also saw then on the second or third day that Soviet and Russian banks have been taken out of this with the system, which is certainly damaging their economy. And we've seen an increasing movement and development by these countries, by governments, by foreign governments in trying to undermine Russian efforts by hitting them economically. And it's also quite interesting that perhaps this was, it's not the reaction that Putin expected, right? We will be trying to understand his strategy and trying to make a sense out of it, but it seems just very difficult. Perhaps he did not expect such a strong reaction by European governments, because he saw in previous instances the reaction, for instance, in case of poisoning, also the taxation of Crimea and the fighting that has been going on in Donbas since 2014, Europe or like the West or the foreign governments have intervened, but with mild sanctions, whereas this time the sanctions are directed specifically at undermining Putin and his government. So the hope is that the hope is indeed to undermine the economy, so not to allow Putin to keep going on with this war. He's also losing the support of many oligarchs, as we've seen, because they've been obviously particularly strongly hit by the sanctions, and they're losing a lot of money. So if they withdraw their support, they perhaps will see also a change, but it's, it just cannot be like, it's too early to say, well, it could happen, also given Putin some predictability and the way, like looking at the way he's been conducting this war so far, it's hard to make predictions. Well, we talked to somebody in Belgium a couple of days ago, actually yesterday, and he said that people around, including young people, were concerned that this was the harbinger of World War III. How do you feel about that? Is it, is that threat present? Is that threat implied in what Putin does and Putin's unpredictability? Is that, is that fear, you know, through your community, your community and project expedite justice, your community in Italy, your community, such as you are in touch with it in Ukraine? I think everyone, I have spoken to myself, believe that the threat is real of World War III. Particularly the nuclear threat is extremely high and was seen like putting threatening to use such warfare if someone intervened. But yes, in terms like we've also seen the West proceeding quite cautiously, NATO too has been quite wary of imposing no-fly zone above Ukraine, which is, they've already made clear that they do not want to intervene with troops on the territory of Ukraine, but perhaps many have called for no-fly zone to be imposed. But that would require the military involvement of NATO and that has the potential of being very destructive. We've seen in the past what can happen, what is the risk when two countries like the US and Russia that have such a huge nuclear arsenal, like the way that this can threaten the entire world. So surely NATO and Europe in general, I've seen like everyone's been in the US to have been proceeding cautiously and in doing so, they've also received a lot of criticism by the people that are demanding more, but clearly it's a very delicate situation and the risk of escalating World War III is high and the decisions should be taken waiting all the aspects of this and not forgetting indeed about the potential of, the destructive potential of a nuclear war. You know, Sylvia, I suggest to you that human tragedy is only starting to unfold. And I'm reminded of Stalin's effort, successful effort to starve Ukrainians back in the 30s. And indeed he starved many, many millions of Ukrainians to death by cutting off their food supply. And that has the possibility now it's haunting to think that Putin who fashions himself another Stalin would cut off food, make it unavailable to Ukrainians which are hunkered down and starve them now, today. And so you have further possibility of human rights violations and atrocities. Furthermore, you know, they will be separated from healthcare and clean water. And this is a big problem because over time, it's a waiting game. It's essentially a siege and people will die. Do the people you talk with in Ukraine express concern about that since starvation is no way to go? But now people I talk to did not express concerns about starvation but clearly the tactic as you said of like medieval, this medieval tactic of siege that Russia is employing, it's potentially very destructive for the civilians that will not have access to food as you said, which is already like being a scarcity in some cities like Kharkiv, the mayor of Kharkiv was particularly concerned about this as well as the access to water and heat that was lacking because Russia had cut it off. So clearly this, yeah, this is not a war against the Ukrainian government, as Putin initially said, this is a war against the Ukrainian people. He's making, he's attacking civilians. So he's starving them. He's trying to like, these not even, they're not even letting civilians to leave from many cities, like including Kharkiv, which is like particularly having been bombarded between yesterday and today. And civilians are trying to flee but their head they're struggling. So clearly the attack is not, like the aim is not just to undermine the government. The people do are responding. The Ukrainian people are demonstrating incredible resilience in the way that they've been resisting to this invasion, this act of aggression, because that is what it is. So that is what we're talking about here. And people have taken up arms, they've joined the street fighting, they've tried to block roads, so they're like to stop tanks, as well as the convoy that we saw was approaching Kiev that is also was being like it was like on post at the moment, because of the intervention of Ukrainians, as well as the logistical issues that like Russian troops like me have had. But it's certainly a very, very worrying situation in terms of the human tragedy, in terms of the impact it will have on the people. We've seen that a million people have left the country already in eight days, a million people. That's an incredible number. These people are like just fleeing for their safety. They're going to Poland, a lot of them, nearly half of them to Poland, but also Hungary, Moldova, Romania, all the border countries and they're being also transported to other or like they are finding means of transport to other destinations in Europe to join their families. Would Europe accept them? Will Italy accept them? Will Germany accept them? Will France accept them? Yes, for sure, everyone will accept the refugees, not just within Europe, but also other countries outside of Europe have shown willingness to accept Ukrainians fleeing the conflict. You have friends there. You spend time there. You applied for your internship there and so you have a sense of what it's like to be Ukrainian. And of course your Italian and the Italians have a special good nature, may I say. That's an understatement. I love Italian people. In any event, what did you think of the Ukrainians? What did you think of their good nature? How close were you in terms of having friends there? How close are you? What are they like? I have to say my experience in Ukraine has been one of the best I've had so far. I've lived in a few countries, but Ukraine has been, or Odessa in particular, has been one of the places I've had the easiest time to talk to. Everyone has been extremely welcoming since the beginning. It was almost unbelievable how welcoming it would just be to a foreigner from the university staff to university students. A lot of people contacted me wanting to meet me, wanting to exchange ideas. It's been a really wonderful experience there in Odessa and I've long wanted to return and I hope that I'll also be able to do so. But yeah, it's very heartbreaking now. I've lived there. I've witnessed, I've walked in those streets now seeing those same streets being bombed and my friends taking up arms to fight there for the families. It's just incredibly heartbreaking, but shows a lot of bravery from their side. I just really hope that this will end soon and we'll be able to see each other again very soon and walk on the beach. Yeah, I wish I could find an indication that it will end soon, but it doesn't actually, from all indications right now, not going to end soon. Sorry to say. So I know you made notes for our discussion, Sylvia. You thought about it a couple of days anyway. You had a lot of things that you wanted to express. I don't know whether you've expressed all the things you wanted to express. We have a few minutes left and I would like to offer you the opportunity to make any other statements, express any other thoughts and reactions that you had planned to mention. Yeah, I would like them to make a final statement and also an appeal to everyone that is witnessing these atrocities. We've seen the governments that they are proceeding cautiously to indeed avoid nuclear threat, as you said, and also say further economic interest, but it is clear, it is also clear that putting the underestimated European response, as I said, there has been a gradually increasing response at the sanctions level, as we said, but also at accountability level with the ICC, the ICJ getting involved. We've seen a lot of the response across the globe and I guess what Putin had not realized is that these are our friends, our brothers that he attacked, and that's the you there, our neighbors. They want to join our union and we want them in and this is a process that's been ongoing already for some time and the many aspects that Ukrainians are already a part of the EU. So many Ukrainians live in European countries, as I was mentioning, there's a huge community in Italy and I have lived in Ukraine and I'm sure that I'm not the only one like me, many others friends in Ukraine or classmates or family and this is also true for the Russian people because like we let's not forget that some of the Russian people are also like if not all are a victim of these tragedy too, they've been strongly protesting in squares, risking their lives, more than 6,000 people have been arrested since then and a lot of Ukrainians have families in Russia, they are like they have like a good relationship like the Ukrainian people tend to have good relationship with the Russian people in terms of obviously this situation is very delicate but like they have family there, some of them and also the Russian people are, there's children that are dying too in this war and I'm happy that the Ukrainian people who are demonstrating incredible resilience and it's really admirable but let's not leave them alone against this insane megalomaniac who after invading the country has been committing such grave atrocities against civilians. So let's not leave them alone, we have options, let's use them, we need to fight back as international community with everything we have so let's bridge the debates on accountability and sanctions, let's fight with every on every possible front on every possible front to really undermine Russian power and also let's not forget that we have also the possibility of doing something about it right, all of us can contribute to this whether it's through protesting a lot of people find perhaps not very effective at times about protesting can help and he also helps the Ukrainian people right to show that we are with them but it's also about creating spaces where we can share ideas, connect to people and raise awareness of what is happening. Well what else can we do? We can donate, we can donate directly to the Ukrainian army if we want or we can also donate to NGOs that are getting involved on the border, they're trying to help the refugees or getting food into Ukraine and we can also offer our skills. So us at PEJ, Project Expedite Justice are volunteering, some of us are volunteering our time now to work on some projects and sanctions to help and contribute in the way we can with our legal skills to the situation right and also I've heard that in Romania there are dentists for instance offering free service to Ukrainian refugees so a lot of people are getting involved in the way they can and that's what we need to continue doing so we don't have to be the decision maker to be able to do something about the situation, we have the tools, we can fight misinformation, we can increase awareness and in our like individual capacity we can still contribute hopefully to bring an end to this war. Jovia Autaneti, I am profoundly touched by your comments, I'm sure many people. Thank you so much for joining us today and helping us understand what it looks like from Europe.