In Kiev, I met Yurii Sheliazenko, a Quaker conscientious objector and leader of the Ukrainian Pacifist Movement, whom I had met and interviewed during my trip to Ukraine last August, and his friend Artem Denysov, also a Quaker. They took me to the “Fayna Town” residential complex where Artem lives, a sort of city within a city, surrounded by fences and patrolled by security guards. Inside, there are shops, a pharmacy, and a private school, many trees, lawns, and several children’s playgrounds. Artem showed us a still-empty building damaged by a Russian drone in broad daylight, which terrified the residents, fortunately without causing much damage.

We touched on several topics, which I summarize below.

Yurii, can you tell me about your current legal situation? Are you currently under any restrictions on your personal freedom?

My house arrest ended in February 2024, but I have not been able to move abroad, and any travel within Ukraine is risky. Our friend Oleksandr Ivanov was forcibly conscripted while on a tourist trip to Bessarabia. I have no formal obligation to remain in Kyiv, but I do so because any attempt to move could be interpreted as an escape attempt and I could be deprived of my freedom. Furthermore, I cannot imagine a better place to realistically live and work than Kyiv, given the current circumstances and the travel ban.

At the moment, I can move cautiously in Kiev, because military recruiters are hunting people down in the streets to forcibly recruit them, beating them and confiscating their smartphones. I am being tried on political grounds because of my pacifist worldview and for a letter I sent to President Zelensky with a statement titled “Peace Agenda for Ukraine and the World,” which calls for nonviolent resistance to Russian aggression and the protection of the human right to conscientious objection to military service.

The next hearing is scheduled for September 11th. The hearings are currently in the preparatory phase, and I am filing complaints regarding numerous violations committed during the pre-trial investigation: the seizure of my computer and smartphone, the publication of a press release by the Ukrainian security services that painted me as an enemy and a criminal, not just a suspect, and which sparked a smear campaign in the media, unauthorized access to my medical records and bank accounts, excessive intrusion into my home and private life, mobile communications with vaguely worded court orders, and many other technical irregularities by the investigators.

They found no evidence of illegal activity in my life, because I am a lawyer and I work hard to comply with Ukrainian laws. However, they disproportionately violated my privacy by obtaining a lot of sensitive information about me and depriving me of the means to carry out my professional work as a human rights defender, likely with the intention of exerting pressure on me and my contacts. Although I resist pressure, I had the impression that such pressure was more effective on others, hindering my work for human rights and peace.

I would like to add that conscientious objection for religious reasons is not recognized in Ukraine. We are currently in contact with twelve people who have publicly declared themselves conscientious objectors, refusing to go to the front. They all belong to minor religious denominations, faithful to their pacifist and nonviolent principles, such as Quakers, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh-day Adventists. These are their names: Adamovyc, Bezsonov, Chyzhof, Ivanushchenko, Khomenko, Kryushenko, Nechayuk, Nosenko, Radashko, Semchuk, Skilar, Solonets.

The official Ukrainian churches, both those that recognize the authority of the Pope and the Orthodox ones, instead support the war against the Russians.

Pro-war religious displays in Lviv

On the other side, Patriarch Kirill I of Moscow, whose authority is recognized by Russian-speaking Orthodox Christians, declared: “We are in a war that has taken on a metaphysical meaning. Gay parades demonstrate that sin is a variable in human behavior. This war is against those who support gays, like the Western world.”

The persecution of conscientious objectors occurs despite Article 35 of the Ukrainian Constitution, which remains in effect even during martial law, providing for the right to replace military service with alternative non-military service.

What do you think of the anti-corruption movement?

The strong popular reaction following the passage of Law 12414 demonstrates that Ukraine has preserved a culture of democracy and peaceful protests. Law 12414 was a tool to increase presidential control over law enforcement, introduced arbitrarily to halt investigations into Zelensky’s inner circle. It reduced the independence of prosecutors and anti-corruption agencies and granted broad, unchecked powers to the Prosecutor General, who is appointed by the president.

Zelensky responded to the protests by introducing a new bill, numbered 13533, which was approved and signed, restoring the independence of the anti-corruption institutions—the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO).

Although Zelensky claims to have listened to the people, he has instead created an alibi to claim his innocence, while the NABU agents are still under investigation by the Ukrainian security services, controlled by the president, under the pretext of Russian influence. The new bill also aims to limit that influence, meaning Zelensky will insist that the attack on the NABU, which included the search of the homes of 20 agents without judicial authorization, was “justified.” This scandal will not end easily and will increase political tensions in the country, already under pressure from Russian aggression and losses at the front.

It’s positive that the protests were mostly peaceful, but on the other hand, tempers are high, with many obscene slogans, and there were no protests against militarist policies; on the contrary, people still place too much faith in war, the army, and the punishment of external and internal enemies, such as the ruling elite, deemed corrupt. If the population continues to be obsessed with the belief that justice can only be achieved through violence, it will strengthen autocratic militarism and destroy the democracy that people hope to protect with their protests.

However, there are other types of protests less reported by the media, which contradict support for the war and mainly concern rural areas, which pay the highest price in casualties. Following recent reports of a conscript being kicked and electrocuted to death on a military bus—a case that is the subject of an official investigation by the State Bureau of Investigation—some people stopped one of these buses and forcibly freed the detained conscripts being transported to the front.

In Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, many protesters took to the streets to demand the release of illegally detained conscripts stripped of their cell phones. Police violently dispersed them, using tear gas and arresting five people on charges of attempting to occupy a government building, which seems exaggerated. Media outlets also reported a violent response by residents of a village in the south of the country to the recruitment raids. We are likely to see further protests and riots against the ongoing arbitrary detentions and torture, blatant violations of the human right to conscientious objection to military service, denounced by the UN and Council of Europe human rights commissioners. Unfortunately, mainstream media have a policy of self-censorship regarding human rights violations during the mobilization; they typically issue official press releases and do not seek comments from human rights defenders. This policy is supported by the national media regulator, which argues that any criticism of the mobilization favors the enemy.

By the way, the National Council for Media Regulation did not register my online media outlet, “Free Civilians. Herald of Peace and Conscientious Objection,” despite knowing it was against the law, likely due to a misleading and pressured letter from the Ukrainian security services. My case against the media regulator is in court, but for strange reasons, a simple case that should be resolved in two months hasn’t been resolved in a year.