At Nobel ceremony, Russian crimes, ‘imperialism’ take center stage

KYIV, Ukraine — In an impassioned speech upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday, the laureate from Ukraine seized the moment to make an incongruous but powerful point: At this moment in history, she said, the only way to secure democracy, human rights and a lasting peace in Ukraine is to fight.

“People of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world,” said Oleksandra Matviychuk, who accepted the prize on behalf of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, which she heads. “But peace cannot be reached by a country under attack laying down its arms. This would not be peace but occupation.”

The other two laureates — Memorial, a Russian research and human rights organization, and Ales Bialiatski, a jailed Belarusian activist — have also become symbols of resistance and accountability during the largest ground war in Europe since World War II, set off by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Memorial is known for its efforts to uncover the crimes of the Soviet era, but Jan Rachinsky, its chairman, who accepted the award for Memorial, said his organization does more than research and document the tragedies of the past, extending its efforts to the “acute social conflicts of the present.”

“What we see as the root cause of these crimes is the sanctification of the Russian state as the supreme value,” he said in his speech. “This requires that the absolute priority of power is to serve the ‘interests of the state’ over the interests of individual human beings and their freedom, dignity and rights.” This “inverted system of values,” he said, “prevailed in the Soviet Union for 70 years and, regrettably, continues until today.”

In her acceptance speech, Matviychuk of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine said the international system designed after World War II has been severely undermined and called on world leaders to “stop pretending deferred military threats are ‘political compromises.’ ”

“The democratic world has grown accustomed to making concessions to dictatorships,” she said. “And that is why the willingness of the Ukrainian people to resist Russian imperialism is so important.”

A desire for peace does not mean peace at any cost, she said, and her country cannot “leave people in the occupied territories to be killed and tortured.”

“People’s lives cannot be a ‘political compromise,’ ” she said. “Fighting for peace does not mean yielding to pressure of the aggressor; it means protecting people from its cruelty.”