Power Lines Episode 6 Bonus Transcript
[Music Playing]
Jakub: Hello, listeners. Welcome to your bonus episode of Power Lines; from Ukraine to the world.
Anastasiia: I am Anastasiia Lapatina.
Jakub: And I'm Jakub Parusinski. For this week's bonus, we're speaking about Roman Ratushnyi, a well-known Ukrainian activist who fought to preserve green spaces in Kyiv, then joined the military and was killed by Russians in June of this year.
Anastasiia: We're bringing you an extended version of our interview with Maryna Khromykh. She's an Executive Director of DEJURE Foundation, and a friend of Roman’s.
Jakub: We also reached out to Arthur Kharytonov the President of the Liberal Democratic League of Ukraine, and the main coordinator of Free Hong Kong Center. He was a close friend of Roman too, and he told us about Roman's legacy.
Nastya, you know a lot of civil society activists. Did you ever meet Roman?
Anastasiia: I didn't actually, and I regret this to this day because something like a year and a half ago before the war, I was in Kyiv, and Arthur actually, invited me to a conference that he was helping organise, and I was at that event.
A lot of activists also were there, including Roman, and of course, I knew of him, of course. And I saw him and I took my mental note that, oh, maybe I should go talk to him and introduce myself, we have a lot of common friends, but I never did.
I think there is even a picture of me sitting in one of the chairs and Roman is also in a corner talking. So, we were so close, but our paths never crossed. And I was with my friend the day that the news came out that he was killed. And I remember, it was tragic.
It was so tragic because somehow, it really felt like I did know him. And a lot of my friends told me the same thing, that they never met Roman, but they felt that this particular loss was so personal to them.
Yeah, it's difficult to talk about this. I can't even imagine what people who actually knew him go through.
[Music Playing]
Jakub: On that note, let's hear from Arthur.
Arthur: If you would like to ask who was Roman Ratushnyi, I would say definitely he was a hero for us, for his friends. He definitely was a good friend, a very close friend, and a very hard working friend, passionate about the future of Ukraine, and the future of the globe.
I think it's something very, very, very important to know about him, that he was very, very open-minded person and very global-minded person. And he was very justice lover because like Marvel heroes have like to fight injustice, to fight every evil we can find in the world.
And he tried to be everywhere. He tried to support everyone who needs the support. And very unfortunately, the Russian criminals, the Russian sacs have killed him, and we never will fulfil the lost.
Of course, Ukraine lost the brightest hero as well as the civil society, and we lost )people who know him) a very great friend of ours. But in my personal case, I think I lost a very important strategic partner to deal against the evil because it's very hard to find someone who shares the same wishing of freedom and have the same feeling of how to defend the freedom.
Also, I think that he actually became a symbol for the next generation of Ukrainians. And actually, it's something he personally would like, because I can say he was a kind of humble and he never been outspoken about himself and his personal achievements.
But it's something he actually also tried to do is to show that his example could be used by the upcoming young freedom fighters. And I do believe that many and many generations ahead, they will learn Roman stories. They will open the history book of Ukraine, find his pictures, read his biography, and to gain inspiration.
And I'm extremely happy that people outside Ukraine already know his story. And these people are actually exchanging these knowledges with old friends and old colleagues and fellow brothers and sisters fighting against global autocracies.
So, it's something making us very strong. I mean, his spirit and everything, he actually transferred to us after the death.
The loss still pains and there’s a gap inside us, inside myself. And it's very hard to say that we will remember him because it's very hard to accept that there is no Roman anymore.
But at the same time, I have very clear understanding that Roman will never accept our mourning, cries, or any bad mood. His motto was to do work and to do it effectively, and everything making us less effective is bad. Thus, any mourning is bad.
That is why with all my inside pain, I have also very strong feeling of hope. And I also know that we, as a civil society, as young people fighting for freedom in Ukraine, would need definitely to continue his work because he had a lot of points in his to-do list. And right now, this doing list is up to us.
So, we will definitely continue the way Roman started and we'll try to do our best.
Jakub: As Arthur says, it's very uplifting in a sense to see how much Roman's life and achievements were recognised abroad.
The story of his death travelled across the globe; there were obituaries in The Economist in Financial Times. And as painful as it is, it's important that his efforts have left a mark and have allowed the world to recognise the battle that young Ukrainians have fought for many years now to transform their country.
Anastasiia: Right. And I think Arthur's description of Roman kind of managing to bring people together, to work together for a particular goal and motivate people even after his death is so sad, of course, but it's also so beautiful and really echoes what Maryna had to say when I spoke with her.
[Music Playing]
Jakub: Let's hear more from Maryna.
[Speaking Ukrainian]
Anastasiia: I love saying hi in Ukrainian to guests from Ukraine. Let's start with just you introducing yourself and telling us how you know Roman.
Maryna: My name is Maryna Khromykh. Now, I work as an Executive Director of DEJURE Foundation. This is an advocacy and analytical centre, which is dealing primarily with judicial reform and rule of law issues in Ukraine.
Basically, we are pushing one of the most important issues in our country now because probably, you know that the judicial reform and the reform of constitutional court are two of seven obligations, which we have as EU candidate status.
We are doing our best to fight with corruption and lack of integrity in judicial system. We consider it as our own frontline because we know that a lot of judges has been always really connected to Russia.
We know plenty of cases when their children are living in Moscow and having some business there, having some property there.
Anastasiia: Some people even have a Russian passport. There was this whole scandal recently.
Maryna: Yes, we have this case with Bohdan Lvov, one of the main judges of the whole country. And yes, the journalists recently found out that he has a Russian passport, and he was dismissed from his position as a judge. But he's now trying to-
Anastasiia: Reinstate himself.
Maryna: Yes. And he's doing it through a very corrupted and pro-Russian court, [Ukrainian acronym]. It’s in Ukrainian.
Anastasiia: This is like the most notorious court in Ukraine for context, for context for our listeners.
Maryna: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Anastasiia: Nothing good happens in those walls.
Maryna: Yeah, and I've met Roman on one of the rallies that we have organised as an initiative for justice in Katya Gandzyuk case. She was a civil activist from Kherson. She was attacked in summer of 2018.
Basically her case wasn't the first attack on the representative of civil society in Ukraine because in 2017 and 2018, there was a huge wave of attacks and persecution of plenty of activists, civil activists from all around Ukraine, but her case was the most terrible because she was attacked with sulfuric acid.
Almost litter of this acid was poured on her body; on her head, on her back. And she spent three months in hospital fighting for her life. She had 14 surgeries during this period, but unfortunately, she died.
Anastasiia: This just shows how dangerous it is and how dangerous it can be to be an activist in Ukraine. So, Roman wasn't living the safest life with his activism.
Maryna: Sure. And Roman, as a lot of other people, a lot of other civil activists understood that this case is very important because if we do not get justice in this case, so we cannot expect anything good for ourselves, and each civil activist can be the same.
So, this was a case which united very different people; not only civil activists, but just ordinary people who just seek for justice in Ukraine and he helped us a lot because he was very active, very responsible person.
I knew that I can always rely on him, that if he said that he will be there on five o'clock, you can be there at five o'clock and expect Roman with everything he promised you to bring. So, yes, it was a pleasure being with him and knowing that this is the next generation.
You can just, I don't know, go retired and expect that Roman will be after you and will do the job of this civil society and so on. So, Kater actually united all of us, and she was doing that during all of her life.
And even after her death, she's doing that as Roman also did. He united very different people who lived in the area of Protasiv Yar. When he was telling the stories about his neighbours, it's unbelievable because very, very different people were united because of his will to save this area, to have justice again for this part of Kyiv, not to lose it, and so on.
Anastasiia: Could you then explain for our listeners a bit, what is even Protasiv Yar and what happened there? How did Roman get involved and who were the people trying to build over it and so forth?
Maryna: Roman was fighting with one of the strongest construction mafia in Kyiv, and he was trying to save the green area in the very centre of the Kyiv.
His case actually is a success story of having the justice for this community, which was fighting for this green area. Roman was elected by this community as a leader, and he has done so many things to unite this, as I said, very different people, and to get the support of other initiatives from Kyiv, from, I don’t know, other regions from ecological initiatives.
So yes, he had the aim to save this green area because it's a huge problem for Kyiv with this constructions. And I would be very frankly, that often they are very ugly, and impossible for living.
Anastasiia: I can agree with that. Why was it Protasiv Yar that mattered so much to him?
Maryna: I never asked him why he was doing that, but I guess, it's about what we can do. I’m just imagining that someone would ask me why do I do all of the things that I'm doing? That's just because I can.
You don't spend your childhood dreaming how you are going to be the civil activist or stuff like that. You are just becoming a grown up and you see some injustice, and if you want this injustice to be done, to be received, I don't know, you are just doing what you can do to make it happen.
That's, I guess, why Roman was doing it because he could do that. He was famous from 16 because he was one of the students who was beaten on Maidan, the beginning of the Revolution of Dignity.
Anastasiia: That was essentially one of the main events that sparked the revolution when the protesters were beaten up.
Maryna: Yes, and I remember him telling me about that night, and it was crazy because he had no fear.
The very interesting fact about Roman that when he was telling about something, even about that night on Maidan, he had no fear. He was just so oriented on the justice, on something which has to be done right in Ukraine.
So, yes, he was so fearless in all of this. And even when he went to fight for independence of Ukraine after the 24th of February, again, he was fearless. And that inspired me earlier, and I guess it would inspire me during the end of my life.
Anastasiia: Do you remember his reaction to the full scale invasion? Was he surprised? Did he anticipate it was going to happen?
Maryna: He was not, because he was one of those who realised that this big war will happen anyway, that the only reasonable actions what can be, is preparing for this war.
And I wasn't agreeing with him because I didn't believe that war like this could happen, because I can see that Russian people and Putin himself more clever because this war is not-
Anastasiia: Doesn't make sense.
Maryna: Yes, totally. But Roman was among those people who were just preparing himself, doing everything he could, learning how to shoot, learning how to do other things, and how to be good in all of that.
Anastasiia: So, he knew right away that he was going to join the army and go and fight. That wasn't a difficult decision for him?
Maryna: Yes, totally.
Anastasiia: Do you remember how you heard that he was killed?
Maryna: I was just out of my apartment. I have a dog, and I went for a walk with her. I just closed the door. And some of our common friends wrote a message in our chat that something happened to Roman.
Actually, I stopped. I sat down on the street, and I started crying. People were walking by and trying to calm me down, but I was like, “I'm okay, I'm okay. Just leave me alone.”
And unfortunately, I was the one who informed Evgeniya Zakrevska about this, because I thought that she might know more information, because of course, I didn't believe that this is true.
Because it's Roman, he cannot be dead. It’s Roman Ratushnyi. He is one of the most alive person that I know. So, it's impossible of course. And I expected that Evgeniya will say like, “Yes, he's okay. Why you are discussing something like that? It's a bullshit, just leave me alone.”
Because Evgeniya has joined the armed forces of Ukraine from the very beginning of the full scale invasion too. And from one side, I was worried that I will bother her and stuff like that. But from the other side, I just wanted her to say me that, “No, it's not true. Roman is okay, just go walk with your dog, and leave me alone.”
But she called me, I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes later when I mean, different friends of Roman who are still in one chat, we were trying to find out more information, something actually that could prove that this information is not real.
But unfortunately, we were finding more details about his death. And when Evgeniya called, I couldn't keep myself calm. And I was crying and telling her that Roman was dead.
Probably, I should do that in some other way, because Evgeniya Zakrevska was one of the closest friend of Roman, but I was so, so frustrated, so I don't know, so ruined. So, I did that how I did.
And the very first days were very terrible because we understood that we cannot go public with that because his body was still lying-
Anastasiia: In the gray zone.
Maryna: Yeah. And it is very risky for the militaries to go there just to take his body home.
They managed to do that because of the rain. I remember one of his friends wrote a tweet like “Infantry don't like rain, but not today.” We knew that rain will help them get the body back. And after they did it, all of the conversations regarding the funeral raised up and stuff like that.
And after we found out that he said that he would like to … the money, which should be paid after the deaths of the military should be transferred to the musician group, to the cultural initiative and stuff like that.
It was crazy because he was only 24, but he even thought about things like that because who are thinking about this when you are 24? You're thinking about, I don't know how to get in love, how to do something-
Anastasiia: Study, have a career.
Maryna: Your future, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was crazy.
Anastasiia: I never knew Roman personally, but I remember when I started seeing on Twitter all of these news that he was killed, it was so tragic. And I saw so many people who knew of him, who knew a lot about his work, but didn't know him personally, who were absolutely devastated.
And it was so shocking to me in a way. Because like my day was totally ruined. I mean, I was just thinking about this story all day long, and then for days to come, and I never even knew the guy.
And then there were so many of my friends as well, who were in the same situation, some of them crying, even though still, they too didn't know Roman. So, he had this ability to touch people without ever knowing them.
There was a huge memorial for him on Maidan. I actually attended the funeral at the church, but I didn't go to the memorial later. That was happening in Maidan then to the burial. I assume you were there, right?
Maryna: Yeah.
Anastasiia: Were you shocked to see so many people? I remember the crowd was huge.
Maryna: So many people knew Roman, and as you said, even those who didn't know him personally, they obviously knew about his case, was this Black Square, about Protasiv Yar, about Serhii Sternenko and his support of Serhii.
So, I'm sure that lots of people knew about him and knew that he was a really great person. Really, one of the brightest, one of the bravest, very clever, very intelligent. And it's a great loss for the whole generation, because people like him should become, I don't know, at least the next mayor of Kyiv — at least, or probably the next president, something like that.
They shouldn't die. And it's awful that this Russian war is stealing the future of Ukraine, stealing the brightest people of our country, those who should be leading it and doing something useful, something great in here.
So, yes, I know that it's very important to tell the world stories about people like Roman, and the sacrifice during this war is so huge. So, we don't have any chance to get tired, to surrender or something like that.
So, we just have to remember that we are fighting not only for ourselves, but in the memory of Roman, of Kater, and other people who died for Ukraine, for our independence, for us to be free. It's very important for us to remember about them and to keep part of their soul in our hearts.
And sometimes, of course, it's painful to realise that these people are gone, but at the same time, it makes us stronger and it gives us no doubts in what we are doing and what we are fighting for.
[Music Playing]
Anastasiia: I'm so sorry that all of this is happening, and also, immense thank you for doing this.
[Speaking Ukrainian]
Jakub: Thank you so much for listening to Power Lines. We'll see you next week for our regular episode where we'll be speaking to Bruce Hoffman, a world renowned expert on terrorism studies, about a question that's been on a lot of people's minds; namely, whether Russia's invasion of Ukraine can be labeled as terrorism, and whether that's actually helpful.
Anastasiia: Power Lines is a partnership between the Kyiv Independent and Message Heard. It was produced by Bea Duncan, Harry Stott, and Talia Augustidis. The executive producer is Sandra Ferrari. The theme music is by Tom Biddle and Alfie Godfrey.