In February of this year, an unusual process took place in the city of The Hague in the Netherlands. The People’s Court, involving real judges, prosecutors, and witnesses, tried the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, for crimes of aggression due to his invasion of Ukraine. Three Ukrainian citizens became witnesses in the court. Their life stories about what they came through during the war are part of the collection at the Museum of Civilian Voices of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.

You can find the war stories of the witnesses and their stories about the Hague trial in the Museum’s new collection available at the link https://bit.ly/3W61w5o

The People’s Court was a symbolic and important step towards the restoration of justice for the victims and witnesses of the war in Ukraine. Based on the results of the case, the court called for a guilty verdict to be handed down to the President of Russia.

“I am proud of the opportunity to represent Ukraine at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. I went through captivity, I was subject to execution by firing squad, my fingers were cut off, and I lost my feet. But they will not break us! The whole world is looking up to the Ukrainian people in our fight. I will definitely return to The Hague when Putin is put on trial. Just like me, when I was in captivity, with handcuffs on his hands,” said witness Oleg Moskalenko from Kyiv region.

Another witness was Ukrainian journalist Anzhela Slobodian, who was in Kherson when Russian troops began to “shoot at everything that moved.” Volodymyr Obodzynskyi from Zhytomyr region also took part in the trial. As a result of the Russian bombing, the man lost three generations of his family – his wife, his daughter, his teenage son, and his one-year-old twin grandchildren.

The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation’s Museum of Civilian Voices is the world’s largest archive of stories from Ukrainian civilians who suffered from the war. The Museum’s collection now has more than 70,000 stories. Share your story on the Museum’s portal https://civilvoicesmuseum.org/ or via the toll-free hotline (800) 509 001.