Roman Avramenko

Ukraine, CAHR, Autumn 2017

My name is Roman, I was born and have lived my whole life in Ukraine.

I received my education in physics and journalism and have then been working for several years as an editor. Both of these experiences came to good use helping me when I started to do my human rights work.

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My engagement in human rights defense started in 2013 from the Euromaidan events that resonated with me. After more than 100 people were killed by snipers on our main square I felt that I could not stay aside any longer. Then, when my country was put in a conflict which became war very soon, we gathered a small group of activists in 2014 to document war crimes in eastern Ukraine and crimes against humanity in annexed Crimea. We've been gathering witness statements, analyzing craters and shell remains, collecting physical evidence, and submitting this information to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Doing this we fight impunity in international humanitarian law violations and keep a detailed chronicle of a war in which Ukrainians suffer a lot.‌

Subsequently I became a field team leader. My education and working experience helped me to plan and conduct missions and gather complete and trustworthy evidence. Education in physics was useful to me as a researcher because I knew how weapons work and how to provide physical security to our team. Skills in journalism are essential for properly interviewing the witnesses to get them to highlight the key issues.

At first we went on field missions under the patronage of the International Partnership for Human Rights (IPHR). Progressively we decided to create our own organisation that concentrates on documenting war crimes, crimes against humanity and other human rights violations. We called ourselves the "Truth Hounds" and by now have become one of the best experts in documenting war crimes in Ukraine. You never need this knowledge in peaceful life. How do you determine the origin of shelling by the form of the crater after the shell has blasted? How do you count distance to artillery by the delay between sound of firing and explosion? How do you link all the evidence from witness statements and our own findings to name the perpetrator of the crime?

After more than 100 people were killed by snipers on our main square I felt that I could not stay aside any longer.

Working in a war zone we face the risk of being killed by shelling just because we spend a lot of time there interviewing civilians and collecting physical evidence. Thereby we share the risks with the population living there. We do not work in the separatist republics - no Ukrainian human rights organisation can get access to this territory - but we continue to travel to annexed Crimea. In Crimea, as the risk of being identified by pro-Russian authorities as a Ukrainian human rights documenting team are high, we can be interrogated, detained and face judicial prosecution.

Having counted all the field missions I've conducted I realized I have spent 11 months in a war zone in Donbass and in Crimea. That is more than enough time to give birth to a child. Our achievements have another nature. We have made two and are about to submit our third submission to the ICC which includes facts of 200 shellings in Donbass that appear to be war crimes.

During our activities, the "Truth Hounds" started cooperation with the Council of Europe, the European Commission, OSCE/ODIHR, and the ICC. We have also joined the Civic Solidarity Platform and Coalition for the International Criminal Court.

In Georgia, the "Truth Hounds" team together with its partners are implementing requirements of the post-Soviet region project "Tbilisi Shelter city" – a shelter for human rights defenders, which allows activists who are in trouble to get into a safe environment and receive necessary counseling.

During the CAHR Protective Fellowship Scheme at the University of York I've been working on a project that will help the victims of crimes who are left with no possibility of defending their rights and continue to live in terrible conditions, suffering from war and deprivations, to obtain justice through mechanisms of international justice, national courts and universal jurisdiction. To complete this, I’m developing a database for the thousands of pieces of evidence we’ve collected, seeking for lawyers and partners from other international organisations to fight impunity in war crimes.