The 28-year-old joined the Ukrainian human rights organization Almenda in 2013, an organization that she currently co-leads. Initially, the goal was to increase the teaching of democracy and human rights in Crimean schools, but that changed after Russia’s illegal annexation in 2014.
Since then, the organization has worked to document Russian war crimes, first in Crimea and after the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022 in all occupied territories. Above all, it is about documenting and following the children’s situation in Russian-controlled areas.
– When we talk about occupied areas, it is easy to think that it is about land, but that is not the important thing. These are people we are talking about, especially young people, our new generation. Right now they are being prepared to one day become part of the Russian army, says Marija Suljalina.
Photo: Bernat Armangue/AP
Since 2022, the reports on The Kremlin’s attempts to Russify Ukrainians in occupied territories have increased. Among other things, the hryvnia has been banned as a currency, the population has been given Russian telephone numbers and the children are forced to follow the Russian curriculum.
Marija Suljalina’s team works closely with several prosecutor’s offices around Ukraine to gather evidence of war crimes. The list of people they want to bring to justice is getting longer. At the same time, the group works closely with both teachers and students in liberated areas, to help them become part of Ukrainian society again. For her work, Marija Suljalina is now being praised by Civil Rights Defenders.
– It is a great honor to receive this award. I share this with my entire team and everyone we work with to document the injustice, she says.
Facts.Civil Rights Defenders
Civil Rights Defenders was previously called the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. It was founded in 1982 and then focused primarily on supporting the civil rights in the Helsinki Agreement. In 2009, it changed its name to Civil Rights Defenders and today has operations in Sweden, Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South America, among others.
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Since the outbreak of war has hundreds of Ukrainian children have been killed and thousands have been forcibly displaced by Russia. Marija Suljalina hopes that those taken from their homes will be reunited with their families.
– There is no future for them in Russia. The only thing that exists is to one day be drafted into the Russian military and fight in the Kremlin’s war – either in Ukraine or elsewhere.
– It must be remembered that if Russia, God forbid, should win the war in Ukraine, they will not stop here. They will continue west.
