Alona Shkrum, 34, has been a Member of Parliament in Ukraine since 2014. A lawyer by training, she studied in Ukraine, Paris and Cambridge. Francophone, Anglophone, she is able to speak both Russian and Ukrainian. Married to another deputy, who took up arms to join the Territorial Defense, she has been fighting in recent days on another front, for the maintenance of the economic fabric of her country. In the interview she gave us from the accommodation she occupies with friends in kyiv, she expresses herself with a determination and a strength that testifies to her will to resist.
Can you describe for us the situation in kyiv at the moment?
We are at war. Russian forces are systematically stopped before entering kyiv. Last week, the tension increased with the curfew imposed by the authorities to ensure that Russian soldiers had not entered the city. Alerts and bombardments take place every 2 or 3 hours. Unfortunately we have been living in this situation for almost a month and we are starting to get used to it. And, paradoxically, apart from the alerts and the bombardments, the city is calm, because thousands of people have fled the city and millions have left the country.
You haven’t thought about leaving the country?
I am staying with friends, because my accommodation is not safe. As an MP, I will not leave, but we advise all families with children to leave the country. Especially since in Mariupol and Kharkiv, children are targeted.
What is the situation in terms of access to food, water and electricity in Kyiv?
We have managed to open supermarkets in recent days to maintain supplies for Kyiv residents. Routing remains possible, as routes to the west and European borders remain accessible from Kyiv. As a Member of Parliament, I have been working in recent days to maintain the country’s economic activity as much as possible by encouraging companies to relocate as much as possible to the west of the country.
The objective is to resist at all levels?
Exactly. We must support and ensure that our economy is maintained as much as possible so as not to mortgage the future of our country and ensure that our armed forces are supported both economically and in terms of supply. Of course, we are extremely worried about towns like Mariupol, where the state of siege by the Russian forces means that we cannot come to the aid of the population, who have neither water nor food. We are fighting for the establishment of real humanitarian corridors that would allow the inhabitants to take shelter from Russian bombs, but the situation is extremely complicated.
What about at the political level?
We have managed to organize two parliamentary sessions since the invasion of our country by Russia on February 24 and we are about to have a new parliamentary session, the date of which I cannot reveal to you for security reasons. It is important that we show the Ukrainians that we ensure the continuity of the institutions and the functioning of the state. President Volodymyr Zelensky asked us, the people’s elected representatives, not to leave Ukraine except for professional reasons, if our actions must, for example, be done from abroad.
On your Twitter account you castigated the maintenance of the activities of certain French companies in Russia, in particular Auchan, Leroy-Merlin and Danone, why?
Vladimir Putin is a war criminal who invaded an independent country despite all rules of international law. The sanctions that have been put in place by the European Union and the United States against Russia are very important. It is necessary to put in place an economic isolation of Russia, in order to bend Vladimir Putin and stop the massacre that Ukraine has suffered for more than three weeks. However, some European brands refuse to cease their activities in Russia.
Are you worried about Kyiv?
I think kyiv will be able to resist. Ukraine has already been able to thwart Vladimir Putin’s blitzkrieg plan. Our intelligence showed that he planned to take kyiv on the 2nd or 3rd day of the invasion. It was not possible. Today, Russian tanks will have great difficulty entering kyiv. And we are ready to fight. But we would like more support and we ask for a no-fly zone from Ukraine to set up truly secure humanitarian corridors and help us secure our nuclear power plants.
What do you think of the position of European states and NATO, which do not wish to be part of the Ukrainian conflict?
Nobody wants a Third World War, but Vladimir Putin has already started it. If no one stops him, after Ukraine he will invade Georgia and Moldova. Just look at the Russian bombardments, which are getting closer and closer to the Polish border. I have the impression that history is repeating itself, like when in 1940, the United States did not want to enter into a conflict with Hitler, to avoid a rise in tensions on a world scale. But I hope and believe in the possibility of an anti-Putin coalition, an alliance of countries, ready to fight to stop the war criminal that Vladimir Putin has become.
It seems that US intelligence fears chemical attacks from Russia in Ukraine, does this match up with some of your information coming from the field?
In effect. In any case, not only does Russia bomb civilian targets – the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the theater of the city – but they also use thermobaric bombs or models prohibited by international law, such as cluster bombs. All this aims to prove that he can do what he wants with territories that must remain under the influence of the Russian Empire.
You believed in the violence of this war, what did American intelligence predict?
I confess to you that I did not believe it. I thought it was possible that Russian forces would intervene in Donbass and in southern Ukraine, but I did not believe in the scale of the attack we are experiencing, in the bombardments in kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro or even Mariupol. Two days before February 24, I was in New York and I knew that we were preparing for tension but, again, not for such an outburst of violence. But I don’t believe in a lasting war. The economic sanctions to which Russia is subject, the failure of its blitzkrieg scenario, the unpreparedness of its armed forces on the ground and our own military capabilities, will jeopardize Vladimir Putin’s plans.