The Coalition "Ukraine. Five in the Morning" held a two-day strategic session, during which participants analysed the state of development and identified approaches and focus of member organisations' efforts to ensure the implementation of strategic goals, organisational and institutional capacity of the coalition.
The 10-member Coalition Secretariat presented the achievements in the areas of the Coalition's activities and challenges it faces.
The secretariat in 2023 included: Maxim Eligulashvili (Coalition Coordinator), Yulia Ryukhova (Assistant), Denis Rabomizo and Maria Sulyalina (Documentation), Tetiana Pechonchyk and Olha Reshetylova (information),Alyona Lunyova, Nadiya Volkova, Arie Mora (advocacy), Onysiya Synyuk and Daryna Pidhorna (analytical).
As it was noted during the strategy session, the coalition "Ukraine. Five in the Morning" coalition includes 38 civil society organisations and four individual members who collect and document war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Russian armed aggression in Ukraine.
As part of the coalition's support in 2023, 3,596 cases of alleged war crimes were documented in accordance with international protocols, using open sources that were entered into the Ukrainian Mnemonic archive, and 577 interviews with victims and witnesses of war crimes were registered in the I-DOC database.
The coalition supported 14 field missions to the de-occupied regions. The documenters were trained in the basics of documenting and interviewing, as well as in the exchange of experience on organising and conducting field missions.
In cooperation with the PinchukArtCentre, regular information content was provided for the war crimes map, which was presented in Davos and other international venues.
The coalition currently operates a number of databases, including
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The cloud-based eyeWitness to Atrocities application;
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" Mnemonic's Ukrainian Archive, which contains more than 6 million open-source files, including more than 1.7 million video files, more than 2 million photo files, and almost 2.3 million text files;
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a joint coalition database in I-DOC, which contains 2.3 thousand registered events of alleged crimes, more than 6 thousand entered documents, profiles of more than 4.3 thousand victims, 2.9 thousand witnesses, 2.6 thousand suspects of war crimes during the Russian-Ukrainian war, and more than 4 thousand registered profiles of protected objects.
Over the past year, in support of documenting war crimes and taking care of the mental and physical health of its members, the coalition organised and held a retreat for documenters in the Carpathians and provided health insurance for 18 employees of the coalition's member organisations.
Задля захисту потерпілих від російської агресії, сприяння процесам правосуддя на національному і міжнародному рівні, притягнення до відповідальності вищого керівництва РФ і безпосередніх виконавців воєнних злочинів та злочинів проти людяності коаліція працювала з національними органами влади (Міністерство з питань реінтеграції, Національне інформаційне бюро, Представництво Президента України в АР Крим, Офіс Генерального прокурора (ОГП), Уповноважений Верховної Ради України з прав людини та інші) та міжнародними партнерами (структури ООН, Ради Єв
The coalition's experts worked in working groups within the PGO's International Council of Experts (on human rights protection, child protection, international humanitarian law, etc.); groups established under the Ministry of Reintegration, etc.
Six coalition statements were prepared and published, in particular, on the sentencing of prisoners of war in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine; the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station dam; the rocket attack onof the music and drama theatre in Chernihiv; the need for immediate ratification of the Rome Statute of the ICC; the inadmissibility of Russia's election to the UN Human Rights Council; problems with the implementation of the law on missing persons, and others.
In addition, meaningful intra-coalition discussions were held to develop common positions, in particular on the national model of justice for international crimes; the international tribunal and its modality; the problem of criminal prosecution for collaboration, etc.
The Coalition initiated public discussions on uncomfortable topics related to justice for the most serious international crimes during the Russian aggression in Ukraine. For example, in the summer, human rights activists and diplomats discussed "mirages of justice" and debated whether it is possible to build an effective architecture to ensure justice, and in the winter, they held a discussion "Vaccination against populism: what should be the architecture of justice for Ukraine?" at the Civil Society Forum in Kyiv.
At the international level, the coalition "Ukraine. Five in the Morning" coalition facilitated various events at the OSCE, the Berlin Symposium, the Crimean Platform Parliamentary Summit, and the Assembly of States Parties to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Human rights defenders participated in the annual ICC roundtables, where they met with representatives of the court's departments to discuss their work on Ukraine, as well as prepared comments from the coalition to the draft policy on the complementarity of the ICC, and conducted and improved the work of the Informal Dialogue Group.
In 2023, the Coalition prepared a number of studies and analytical products on the deportation of Ukrainians to Russia and Belarus and ways to return deported citizens, the forced mobilisation of Ukrainian citizens in the occupied territories into the army of the aggressor country, mechanisms of accountability for international crimes, and the situation with the work of lawyers in the occupied Crimea.
In order to disseminate the developments, the coalition continued to work systematically on communication with various audiences. In particular, in 2023, 12 information digests and statements of the Coalition were distributed, more than 120 broadcasts of the Coalition's experts were organised in national and international media, 20 media events were held in Kyiv at the Ukraine-Ukrinform media centre, and 24 columns and blogs by the Coalition's representatives were published in reputable Ukrainian media. In 2023, journalists prepared more than 500 materials referring to the work of the coalition, including more than 100 for foreign media.
More than 25,000 people visited the Coalition's pages on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube, with a total reach of more than 150,000 people. The Coalition also launched its own video format, Coalition Talks, where human rights defenders share their assessments and key challenges in their work - 13 such broadcasts took place last year.
The coalition is also working on launching a web portal with a map of documented war crimes.
In 2023, the Coalition was nominated for the ifa AWARD, which will be presented in Berlin in mid-February 2024. This award has been presented since 2009 to people and organisations who, through their social, socio-political or artistic activities, have done something outstanding for peace, international understanding and dialogue between cultures. Previous recipients of the award include Yoko Ono, Ernesto Cardenal, Carla del Ponte and Human Rights Watch.
In 2023, the coalition's activities were supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Ukraine, the International Renaissance Foundation, and People in Need. The Regional Human Rights Centre, the FreeRights Association and the Association of Relatives of Political Prisoners of the Kremlin administered the work of the coalition.
As for the priorities for 2024, the coalition plans to focus on continuing its work on documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity, advocacy, research and information campaigns, as well as strengthening its internal capacity and organisational capabilities, launching a new website and new formats of joint work (monitoring of war-related trials, support for victims, and promotion of transitional justice processes).
31.01.2024
