Havrylov on the crimes of Russia and the cooperation of the Russian-Serbian churches: There are attempts to manipulate the Balkan society

Russia is trying to manipulate Balkan society, especially Serbian society, using the Orthodox Church, says Ukrainian historian Vladislav Havrylov in an interview with The Geopost.

Speaking about Russia’s crimes in Ukraine, the war crimes researcher points out that the Russian Orthodox Church is involved in supporting the Russian invaders and that there are facts when the Serbian Orthodox Church tried to support Russian aggression against Ukraine.

Havrylov also highlights the terrible Russian crimes, forced militarization and mass deportations, in which case he says they have identified over 20,000 children.

“But we think the number could be higher, because Russian invaders are trying every day to steal these children and transfer them to the Russian Federation,” he says.

He is grateful to the West for their help, but points out that they need more.

Full interview:

The Geopost: Thank you Vladislav for this interview, for the Geopost. We saw these days many attacks from Russia in Ukraine and how do you see and how do you comment that?

Havrylov: Yes, you are actually right, because a lot of bombing right now from Russian side to Ukraine, a lot of Russian rockets bombing Ukrainian cities. I am living in Kyiv and I am still working in Kyiv and my research, my work is considered an investigation of Russian war crimes. Every day, when you are just trying to work and live fully, you are at risk of Russian bombing.

It’s terrible, but it’s true, it’s our life but we are still strong and we continue our work. It’s a very hard war for us because, you know, for a pity Russia, a country that is bigger than Ukraine and a lot of Russian soldiers came like invaders to Ukraine in 2022. For example, I live in the Kyiv region, in the Buchansk district and part of this district in 2022, especially in February and March 2022 was under Russian occupation and it was very hard and terrible time. Many of our young Ukrainian men went to the army. I worked at that time as a military volunteer and tried to help our Ukrainian army forces, because I am a researcher, I am a scientist for my education and I started to investigate and research especially Russian war crimes. Yes, my research work, this research work is considered in investigation of forcible deportation and militarization of Ukrainian people but also Ukrainian children. Russia came in a full scale invasion of Ukraine since February 2022 and when they occupied part of Ukrainian territory , they tried to steal Ukrainian people from occupied territory. And according to the UNHCR website, according to the Office of Ombudsman of Human Rights in Ukraine, at least 2.8 million people from Ukraine are forcibly deported to Russia. Right now, we identified more than 20,000 children. But we think that the number could be rather more because Russian invaders everyday tried to steal these children and relocate them to the Russian Federation.

After that, when they relocate Ukrainian children to Russian Federation, they placed these children in temporary accommodation centers. It’s like summer camps, schools, and after that they tried to erase Ukrainian identity in these children and they tried to change their names and for a pity, Ukrainian side have no information about these children and it’s a very hard situation to identify who, especially of Ukrainian children, are forcibly removed, forcibly deported to Russia. And after that, especially to that, they try to militarize, especially young boys, ages from 6 years old to 17 years old. Russians have a number of paramilitary organizations and they try to teach Ukrainian young boys about Russian military lessons, with Russian history, with Russian culture but not with Ukrainian lessons. They do these war crimes because they do want to rechange Ukrainian identity and they try to grow up future mobilized sources for Russian army and we try to collect all of these facts and try to analyze and try to spread to European Union, to United States of America this information and help these people come back to Ukraine and try to do some rehabilitation with these Ukrainian children. But it’s a very hard situation for us because I said you about more than 20,000 children who are forcibly deported but returned just 388, just a small number, and when we’re talking about help of European Union community, help of United States of America, we have several collaborations, for example, I collaborate with Georgetown University, especially collaboration of global children issues and I try to spread my research for them and we try to flood our articles, our research to different international media. And we have several publications about these war crimes. I could share to you some of these articles. And plus to it, we collect information especially about war crimes individuals. It’s Russian individuals, especially Russian authorities, Russian governments, people ahead of some military combat of Russian armies who are involved in process of forcible deportation and militarization of Ukrainian people. And we collect this information, put this information to the list, like a document, and share this sanctioned list to our advocacy partners in the European Union and in the United States of America and after that, they try to improve sanctions against these persons.

The Geopost: Does Western democracy help enough Ukrainian people to win this war?

Havrylov: We are very thankful for this help, but it’s not enough for some of these issues, because we should have more and more sanctions against war crimes individuals, and we should have a chance to have more weapons, especially military planes, rockets and different weapons because it is not enough for Ukraine and Russia has several of these weapons, but we don’t have it in this number. It is very important to us to have more military help and have more advocacy helping to Ukraine. This is very important for us.

The Geopost: What are the interferences and disinformation from Russian media, how do you protect for this because there are a lot of Russians who still lives in Ukraine, so how do you manage this situation?

Havrylov: Yes, we try to analyze facts of Russian disinformation, especially in Russian official media about our issues when we investigate about forcible deportation of people, they don’t say terms of deportation. They say, oh, this is just evacuation of people from war, we just want to help these people, but it’s false because they don’t take these people by choice, because some of people want to return to Ukrainian territory, they don’t want to stay in the occupations territory and don’t want to go to Russia, but Russia does not give them a choice, and forcibly takes them to Russia but Russian media said that these people want to go to Russia, but it’s false and we try to analyze and to show, especially for international media, for the Western media, that it’s a false. Next step, it’s about forcible militarization of Ukrainian children. It’s war crimes against humanity and it’s war crimes against international law. Because for international law, Russian side must send back children to Ukraine, but they don’t do this and they just say that Ukrainians is a Nazi country, it’s false too, and they just say that they try to help Ukrainian to continue their education, It’s next fact about Russian disinformation, because if they want to help with education, they should give to them Ukrainian lessons too, especially Ukrainian history, Ukrainian language. But they don’t do this, they give them just Russian lessons, Russian history, Russian language and Russian military education. And this is a few facts about Russian disinformation in our work.

The Geopost: How do you see the situation in the Balkans and Russian influence in the Balkans, especially in Serbia?

Havrylov: Yes, Russia tries to manipulate with Balkan society, especially with Serbian, because they try to use Orthodox Church. We have this hard situation too, when Russian Orthodox Church are involved in supporting Russian invaders and we know facts when Serbian Orthodox Church tried to support Russia, tried to support Russian Orthodox Church and tried to support Russian aggression against Ukraine and it’s a very hard situation for us and we know about your situation in Balkans where you have hard times with Serbia and this situation for us is the same, because we have a big country near our border and very hard situation in speaking with these countries, hard situation with diplomacy between us and these countries because they don’t want to honor our independence and it is very hard situation for us and for you too and we clearly understand this situation and we support you and you supporting us.

/The Geopost