”We need to support real activism in Ukraine”

The humanitarian aid isn’t reaching people hiding in shelters. Ukrainian activist Olga Nemanezhyna has made her way to Sweden to raise awareness about the conditions for women and activists who remain in the country.

Olga Nemanezhyna has been fighting for women’s rights in Ukraine for almost a decade. She came to Sweden on March 13th to raise awareness about the acute situation for women and women human rights defenders in Ukraine during the ongoing war. Photo: Kvinna till Kvinna/Katinka Igelberg
Olga Nemanezhyna has been fighting for women’s rights in Ukraine for almost a decade. She came to Sweden on March 13th to raise awareness about the acute situation for women and women human rights defenders in Ukraine during the ongoing war. Photo: Kvinna till Kvinna/Katinka Igelberg

It was five in the morning on February 24th when Russia invaded Ukraine. A day Olga Nemanezhyna will remember forever.

“I was in Kyiv. After some days, I moved to my parent’s place, in the Kyiv region. At the time, it felt quite safe. This was wrong of course, there’s almost nothing there now. All these towns and villages don’t exist anymore,” says Olga.

Feeling helpless

Olga stayed with her parents for almost a week. In her work as head of the women’s rights organisation Council of Women’s Initiatives, she had made many friends and colleagues in Stockholm, who begged her to come.

“I didn’t want to leave Ukraine, out of principle. But I felt like I couldn’t do anything to help, I was just standing in the house. Through partners, I tried to do online meetings to talk with politicians—to put pressure on them to influence the situation. I talked and talked and wrote letter after letter,” says Olga.

With the hope of being able to be more effective in her advocacy, Olga made the decision to leave for Stockholm.

Long and inhumane train hours

A journey she had made so many times before, that usually only takes a couple of hours, now took four days.

“I needed help to get back to Kyiv. And then from Kyiv to Lviv, and from Lviv to Poland to Stockholm,” Olga explains. “A friend from university, who was assisting with humanitarian aid, told me I needed to get out quickly.”

Olga’s friend found her a car and a driver to get to Kyiv and the train station where she boarded a train headed for Lviv.

“The train ride was just inhumane. I had never seen such old Soviet style trains; I didn’t know they still existed. And all of these people, who had lost everything. There was no heating and it was minus ten degrees outside. The train ride took 13 hours. Normally it takes five hours to go from Kyiv to Lviv,” says Olga.

Insane prices in Poland

When she arrived in Lviv, Olga was shocked at the lack of humanitarian assistance.

“People were freezing after the train ride and there was nothing at the train station, not even water. I’m still trying to figure out why that is,” says Olga.

She managed to secure a bus to Warsaw and was eventually able to find a flight to Stockholm.

“Everything was booked, accommodation, ferries, buses. The prices were just insane,” says Olga.

Women risking their lives

Since her arrival in Stockholm on March 13th, Olga has been busy, taking as many meetings as she can to raise awareness about the conditions for the women who remain in Ukraine. And the importance to support local activists and organisations.

“The humanitarian aid from large organisations isn’t reaching people. We have activists risking their lives bringing packages of food and medicine to people who are hiding and can’t leave the shelters,” says Olga.

She continues:

“These are the lives of real people we are talking about. We need to support activism, real activism, financially. Especially women; they are not only refugees. There are a lot of women left in Ukraine defending the people who are still there. We forget to talk about these strong, wise and … brave women. They are also heroes.”

 

Olga Nemanezhyna is the founder and head of the Ukrainian women’s rights organisation Council of Women’s Initiatives. Olga has studied international economics and became an activist in 2014. Since then, she has worked with women across the country and launched various projects to support women’s initiatives and leadership on a local level.