Life in a war zone

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘Life in a war zone’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Thursday, February 23rd. This is your FT News Briefing.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

This week will mark a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. And we’ll hear from a Ukrainian lawmaker who’s trying to hold Russia accountable for its actions. But first, a look at some of the companies who are benefiting from the war. I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Western support for Ukraine has driven up shares in US and European defence companies. A leading global benchmark for the defence sector is up almost 30 per cent since the start of October. Europe’s Stoxx aerospace and defence index has risen just over a third over the same period. Investors are betting on increased military spending by western governments, and the gains reflect a growing belief that the conflict is unlikely to end anytime soon.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Russia’s war in Ukraine has gone on for nearly a year. We’re going to hear the recollections of 35-year-old Ukrainian lawmaker Lesia Vasylenko. She’s an international lawyer who’s using her legal skills to try and force Russia to pay for its actions. Vasylenko spoke with the FT’s chief foreign affairs commentator, Gideon Rachman, for the Rachman Review podcast. This is an excerpt from their conversation.

Lesia Vasylenko
We must end this war by summer this year, and we must end it with Ukraine’s victory because the victory of Ukraine is the victory of the democratic free world, and it’s also a victory of the Russian people as human beings.

Gideon Rachman
That was Lesia Vasylenko explaining her view of what’s at stake in this war. And as you’ll hear, she’s doing her part by pursuing legal avenues to prepare the way for war crimes trials and to get Russia to pay for the rebuilding of Ukraine, even has a plan to get Russia booted out of the UN. Like most Ukrainians, she’s having to do all of this against the backdrop of a life turned upside down by war.

Lesia Vasylenko
In Ukraine we started calling February the shortest month of the year, but one which never ends. And it certainly feels like that. We were in total denial. We were saying that we have seen this time and time again. Russia has been amassing troops and then calling them back along the Ukrainian border for the last eight years since 2014. Nothing is going to happen. Because what choice did we have? Starting to do what? Panic? Be scared? Evacuate people? Evacuate families? Cause chaos and havoc in the country? Those were the options on the table. And also there was no option of getting Ukraine armed to the teeth and ready to fight back the Russians. The point is that every single western ally at that point was concerned. They knew what was about to happen, but none was ready to arm Ukraine. The assumption was that Ukraine should just give up, and I won’t be surprised if that will become known in several decades that bets were being placed in how many hours or how many days Ukraine will fall and Kyiv will fall. And there will be, not just a Russian invasion, but a Russian occupation.

Gideon Rachman
Yeah. And now, it’s a year later. Impossible to cover the whole year, but just give us a sense of what happened to you both as a person and as a politician over the course of the last year.

Lesia Vasylenko
I think like many Ukrainians, I discovered dimensions of myself I didn’t even know I had. Resilience is one word to use. As a nation, we proved to the world and to ourselves, first of all, that we are more than strong, that we value freedom, and that we know the taste and the feel of freedom, and that we are prepared to go to very big sacrifices for that freedom. As a person, first of all, I’m a mother. I have three children. The youngest is about to be 20 months old, and I’ve lived this year in separation from them most of the time because I’ve been able to spend maybe two weeks, maybe one week per month with them.

Gideon Rachman
They’re here in London.

Lesia Vasylenko
They are here in London, in the UK, for safety reasons, but also for reason that the older children, who are seven and nine, would have been completely lacking in education if they had stayed in Ukraine. Because you have to understand that with the air raids, there is disruptions in the education process. With dangerous of attacks all the time on the table, many of the teachers have left. With the missile attacks sometimes ongoing for several days, with the attacks on the energy infrastructure, it means that there’s no power; there’s no electricity. So even the online education becomes impossible. So, of course, when and if there is a choice, you make that choice for the future of your children. And of course, the question that I have asked myself as a mother on the 1st of March, that is the day when I evacuated my children, was would I be able to forgive myself if at any point a missile falls, a drone attacks, shrapnel wounds happen to my children? Will I be able to live with this and forgive myself if anything happens to them, knowing well enough that I had the opportunity, the resources and the possibility to take them to safety? The answer was no.

Gideon Rachman
Give us a sense of what it’s like in Kyiv now, because again, from the outside there’s been a rollercoaster. There’s the horrible period when it looked like the Russians might enter. Then they get forced back. But now there’s these attacks on infrastructure. How liveable or unlivable is normal life in Kyiv?

Lesia Vasylenko
The abnormal has become the new normal. It suddenly became normal to go to a restaurant where you know that all your food is being prepared of a generator. To see how businesses, small and medium businesses, especially in big cities in Ukraine, survive by being extremely creative and adapting to providing basic services like haircuts, manicures, other beauty services in the half-dark with torches on the heads.

Gideon Rachman
Yes, and I guess that everybody contributes in the way they can. And you have a particular legal expertise. You’re very involved in the legal lawfare, some might call it, against Russia. What do you think the most important things or the most important campaigns that you can do to use the law, international law against Russia?

Lesia Vasylenko
Well, that’s the beauty of international law. The rules are there. I feel, as an international lawyer, a frustration of sorts, that there is no political will to be applying those instruments so clearly set out. It’s clear that Russia is the aggressor state. Having said that, there’s very slow movements, although there is movement, on the setting up of a special tribunal on the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. And finally, a big one for me is isolating Russia from international platforms. So far, the Council of Europe has excluded Russia and has been the first international organisation to exclude Russia from its membership. But the obvious one is the United Nations, the UN. Russia, being the biggest aggressor, the biggest threat to international security, sits on the UN Security Council. It holds veto power there as a permanent member. Essentially, Russia abuses that veto power to hold the UN hostage. And it’s absolutely ridiculous because everybody knows this. Another fact that is very well known to every single member of the UN is that Russia has acquired membership illegally.

Gideon Rachman
You’re saying the seat belongs to the USSR, not to Russia?

Lesia Vasylenko
Yes, the USSR, an entity which ceased to exist before the Russian Federation was formed.

Gideon Rachman
And the Russians made the mistake of not ratifying it?

Lesia Vasylenko
They haven’t made the mistake. They just didn’t ratify the UN Charter, just like they chose at one point to deny the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.

Gideon Rachman
OK, so legally I can see where you’re going. Politically they’re a non-starter.

Lesia Vasylenko
Politically, actually, no. Politically, it must become the new reality. And I think we owe it, not just to ourselves, but to the future generations that are to come. Because with Russia, that mistake is today costing the lives of thousands of Ukrainians. It has already cost the lives of Georgians. It has already cost the lives of Syrians, and there will be more wars to come.

Marc Filippino
That was the FT’s Gideon Rachman talking to Ukrainian MP Lesia Vasylenko. If you wanna hear the whole conversation, we have the link to the podcast in the show notes.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

[MUSIC PLAYING]