First of all, can you tell us how you feel after more than two years of large-scale war? How do you see the situation in Ukraine and what will happen in the coming months?

The two main emotions we feel are probably tiredness and gratitude. At home, the anguish of air raids, power cuts, the reluctance of Western partners to give a more courageous response to Russian evil, the fact that the Russian military is occupying more and more of our Ukrainian land every day. Gratitude to the Ukrainian armed forces and all the other defence forces for the fact that we live in an independent Ukraine, that we can live and work, even rest sometimes, speak the Ukrainian language and not be killed for it in Russian dungeons.

We’re not political ’experts’, so we can’t say how we see the situation in Ukraine over the coming months. We’re not sure even the political experts know themselves. The news of the last few months makes us very sad - Trump won the election in the US, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres attended the BRICS summit in Russia while Putin is a war criminal. The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on 17 March 2023. This was in connection with a charge illegally children from the occupied territories Ukraine to Russia, which constitutes a war crime under the Rome Statute of the ICC. 

However, we know that Putin has committed and continues to commit many more crimes. Then Switzerland said on 12 January that it was prepared to be a meeting place for Trump and Putin, despite having signed the Rome Statute, and Poland said on 9 January that it would not arrest Benyamin Netanyahu if he visited that country on the day commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz. However, on 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who is accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the Gaza Strip, even though Poland is also a signatory to the Rome Statute. These statements show us that international law is just a formality, and that nobody really cares about justice and humanity.

Of course, the scariest thing now is that Trump will become President of the United States (or already is at the time of this publication). We don’t believe his promises to stop the war in 24 hours, 100 days or even a year. We can see that he, like many others, does not understand the nature of this war. We don’t need a freeze on the war, we need victory for Ukraine and the borders of 1991, without any concessions to Russia. In our wildest dreams, of course, we would like to see the modern Russian Federation cease to exist and the peoples it enslaves become free and independent. The cause of this war is not Putin, nor President Zelensky, nor the so-called “Donbass”, nor discrimination against Russian speakers in Ukraine (which does not exist); the cause of the war is the centuries-old history of Russian imperialism and Russian chauvinism that despises and hates the Ukrainian people.

We have strayed a little from the issue, but it is very important for us to say so. And as for the situation in Ukraine, whatever happens, we will continue our work here, we will continue to support the Ukrainian armed forces (because they are the only ones capable stopping the Russian invasion), we will continue to promote feminist values and ideas of social justice in our society.

It’s been over two years since you opened the Space of things. Hundreds of people have visited the space, where they can pick up free clothes and other useful items that other people have brought in a gesture of solidarity. Can you tell us how things have gone so far?

Space of things is a project that opened at the beginning of August 2022. We were inspired by a similar project in Potsdam, Germany, in the Satellite bookshop. Two of our members visited this place at the beginning of 2022, when they went abroad for two months due to the outbreak of a large-scale war.

We have received funding from various donor organisations for the Space, and so far we have funds until September. However, we are looking to expand the project. Currently it’s open 3 days a week for 3 hours and we have a small room. We’d like to have a bigger space and more opening hours, but it’s all a question of money. Although it’s fair to say that we also need emotional resources, which we also have a few of, and which can’t be provided by donors or philanthropists.... We also have a desire to create a separate space for children, because over the years we have seen that there is a demand for this. We currently have a children’s corner, but it’s small.

In 2023, you published Activistka, a feminist zine, and this year and in July 2024, you published another zine, The Others are like us (52 pages). And also a comic strip. So you’re taking part in the rebirth of the feminist press in Ukraine. Do you have any other publication projects?

Oh, we can’t say we’re taking part in the renaissance of the feminist press in Ukraine (well, maybe a little). After all, it’s not our main activity. For the moment, Activistkaand The Others Are Like Us are our only magazines. We think that in the future we will publish others, but we have no plans for this year.

But you have many other activities: feminist film club, active participation in the international campaign “16 days of activism against gender-based violence”, your You tube channel now has 13 videos with over 5,000 subscribers..... Can you tell us about all the activities you carried out in 2024?

In 2024 :

• we organised a 2-day “open market” [1] which attracted up to 300 people, and we were very pleased with the event!
• we have resumed film screenings and created a feminist film club in Lviv called “Feminist objective”;
• we took a trip to the Zaporijjia and Donetsk region with activities and gifts for the children;
• we created and presented our show “The others are like us” about homeless and destitute women;
• we’ve been cycling with other women;
• we launched the YouTube project “Dear Diary”, a video essay project on women’s and queer perspectives on society, film and pop culture, and have shot 7 episodes (look out for a new episode very soon!);
• we were present at AWID’s biggest feminist forum, where we spoke about Ukraine and the need to resist Russia;
• we have collected and published 16 personal stories of women who have suffered gender-based violence; this is an annual event where we want to give a voice to those who need it, because there are few places where the violence that has occurred can be told;
• we’ve started to be more active on their social networks (instagram and tiktok), publishing various informative articles on feminist issues every week;
• https://www.instagram.com/p/C68un0RNYCT/?igsh=emgybHQwbjE5YXd3
• we organised 36 meal distributions (from January to September).

What are your plans for 2025?

We plan to :

• develop our “Dear Diary” youtube project and actively manage our social networks;
• to continue the activities of the “Feminist objective” feminist film club;
• to continue and develop the activities of Space of things;
• and maybe we’ll start organising educational events for teenagers on gender equality (but it’s not exact yet)

On top of that, we still have a few ideas for different projects, but their implementation depends on many factors, and they only exist in draft form at the moment.

Bilkis

Patrick Le Tréhondat

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