‘Does the enemy's occupation of 500 km² not raise any questions?’ Interview with lawyer-turned-soldier Yevheniia Zakrevska

hromadske: We are now seeing significant changes in the front line not in our favor. Do you agree with the estimates that our frontline has actually crumbled? And what is the key problem then: the management system, resources, or lack of people?

Yevheniia Zakrevska: Our key problem is that we have not yet gained either technological or organizational superiority over the enemy, either in the air or on the ground. At sea, to a certain extent, yes. But this is not enough. We cannot have a numerical advantage - neither in people, nor in means, nor in ammunition (yet). Therefore, it is extremely important to gain a technological advantage and be able to use it to win.

In the meantime, we still need to restrain the enemy along the entire front line. And the longer we don't have an advantage, the more expensive this deterrence is in terms of people.

The help of partners does not in itself convert into an advantage. Although it can help create parity to some extent. Creating a technological and organizational advantage is a priority for the command. This is not just a high-tech solution or product - a "super drone" or "magic ammo". It is a solution and technology that is implemented on the battlefield and makes it possible to safely get closer/strike farther/aim more accurately/hit more.

Such solutions do exist, but they are often detached from the realities of war, and some brilliant idea lacks quality engineering or spatial implementation. Or vice versa – we need to break the habit/laziness/prejudice of the military to make a truly worthwhile solution work and spread.

It is necessary to bring teams of inventors, engineers, and IT professionals as close as possible to the realities of war. To the military, to the specific units that use their inventions. And the military should be given access to inventions at the stage of their creation. At the stage of setting the terms of reference. Cut the R&D chain in half or three times.

I believe that incubators of ideas and startups for their implementation should be organized and created directly in combat units. That the units themselves, in symbiosis with the engineers-inventors, should be such incubators/startups. They should receive direct funding for development, testing, production, and produce ready-made, tested products/solutions/evacuation equipment or mine action systems implemented on the battlefield. And the best of them should be scalable to the entire army.

Something like this is already happening in a very scaled-down form, where advanced commanders have familiar manufacturers, access to volunteer money, competence, and resources to test and implement new things. But this should be done systematically and for budget money.

Next, I want to touch on a painful personnel issue of the army - a large number of those who leave units without permission (AWOL) (there are figures of about 100,000 soldiers). It has reached the point of public manifestation – I mean the case of Serhiy Hnezdilov, who is thus drawing attention to establishing clear terms of service or the right to demobilization. This is obviously based on critical fatigue. You have also been at war for three years. Do you think that the question "Listen, when will I be replaced?" has reached a critical demand for justice?

I have been in the army for two and a half years. Some people have been fighting for 5, 6, 10 years. I've been here since February 24, 2022, and someone has been here since 2014, 2016. Someone came as a volunteer, someone stayed after conscription. Our army, which took the brunt of the first days of the full-scale invasion, is made up of volunteers from 2014, 2015, 2016...

I am not a judge or a prosecutor for those who are tired, who have a more difficult situation, who have been fighting longer than me, who are fighting in the infantry.

I can only speak for myself, and I will not go AWOL. I cannot imagine how tired I must be to move away from the idea that A citation from Serhiy Zhadan's poem"you cannot surrender your own who are caught in a fight, and you cannot forgive strangers who beat you."

Demanding justice is good. But by demanding justice for yourself in this way, you simultaneously deny justice to your brothers and sisters-in-arms who remain in the ranks and those who have been in the ranks forever. I do not believe that justice is more important for me personally than for them.

In your opinion, is the idea of a clear-cut service period realistic in the current situation? And should the Ministry of Defense, which once promised to legislate this issue, now honestly communicate about it?

Simple mathematical calculations, comparing the rate of losses, mobilizing replenishment (which still needs to be trained), and daily monitoring of the approaching red color on DeepState [maps] do not allow me to believe in the possibility of "clear-cut service terms".

Talking about replacement when there are not enough newly arrived people even to replenish the losses is a bit pointless.

What should the Defense Ministry do about it? At the very least, it should ensure timely rotation and real recovery of units that have suffered losses - before they "run out of infantry." Ensure that units are coordinated after restoration, replenishment, and training. Provide these soldiers with the opportunity to take all the leave they have not taken since the beginning of the full-scale operation.

I am also convinced that during the rotation, all the time when the soldiers are not at the training ground, they should be at home with their families, on vacation, abroad, in the mountains, at sea, on rehabilitation. That is, they should actually rest, recover, communicate with their loved ones, live life, drink lavender latte if they need it, and go to gyms or theaters. And not to mop up the parade ground, "stand on the gate" or stand around meaninglessly at the permanent base.

How to make all this possible? Intensify mobilization. Obviously, it is long overdue to announce the mandatory mobilization of women. We need to control the reality of vacations and change the approach to rotations. But in addition, of course, we need a humane attitude to the military on the part of commanders at all levels.

Is there a need for open communication with society? To be honest, I don't know what could be more open than DeepState.

Is the DeepState map closed to the public? And the enemy's seizure of 400-500 square kilometers in a month does not suggest anything?

In your opinion, what is the solution to the problem of unlimited terms of service of those who are currently in the army?

First of all. To count not only the terms of service, but first of all the terms of staying at "point zero". And those soldiers who have not left the front line for years should be given priority for discharge. Unfortunately, there are not many of them left, and believe me, not all of them will be discharged. Or they will use this dismissal to transfer to a more efficient unit.

Second. Long vacations, which the military actually take.

Third. Timely rotations: withdraw a unit when infantry losses are 25%, not when "the infantry is over" and only aerial reconnaissance and mortar launchers are working.

Fourth. To stop the practice of breaking up units and sending their pieces to different axes. In such a scheme, losses are the highest, and coordination, interaction, and efficiency are the lowest.

Fifth. Unblock transfers between units. After all, there have been numerous cases of AWOLs for the purpose of actual transfer to another unit. And this is sometimes the "easiest" way to achieve this. There seems to be progress here, and there are some grounds for hope.

Sixth. A normal humane attitude towards the soldiers. Provide them with the opportunity to stay at home with their families as much as possible.

You said that our entire generation was born for war. But do you believe that we will be able to mobilize enough soldiers?

I believe that general mobilization of women is long overdue. Of course, this will not completely solve the issue of replenishment, but it is also necessary.

Plus, we need to put things in order with draft reservations. It should not be the case that, for example, Balistyka, a manufacturer of military equipment that provides protection to many a unit, whose owner and half of its management have been fighting since the first days of the full-scale war, cannot reserve its employees, while delivery services, gyms, and hotels do so without any problems.

And these are not isolated cases - this is a systemic problem. Obviously, there is something wrong with the criteria of "critical" and the way these criteria are applied.

My words that we were all born for war are simply a statement of reality. We were born and live here in Ukraine at a time when this war with Russia began and is still going on.

Whether we like it or not, we were born for war. And it depends on us whether our children are also born for war. This choice is very simple: occupation, emigration, or resistance. I choose resistance. In fact, the only honest choice for a citizen of a state is resistance.

At the same time, I have a feeling that there are fewer and fewer people who are ready to resist with arms. Do you feel a big abyss between the rear and the front now?

I am lucky to have people around me. I have a wonderful bubble that extends in an amazing way even to random fellow travelers, taxi drivers, baristas in coffee shops, or service station workers. I can't say that I feel such an abyss.

You are now an aerial reconnaissance officer. What are the biggest challenges in your field now? Is there still a shortage of drone operators and drones themselves?

The biggest challenge is effective coordination. radio reconnaissanceRR, electronic warfareEW, aerial reconnaissance, attack drones, FPV kamikaze – everything has to work in a coordinated manner. The electronic warfare device you use to protect your vehicle or dugout should not jam your own FPVs or reconnaissance drones. Information about the danger in the air and the operation of the EW should be communicated to everyone working nearby and taken into account. And, of course, enemy electronic warfare is one of the biggest problems.

The next level of interaction is with UAV manufacturers. I am convinced that development teams should occasionally go out and work with their "birds" in real war conditions. Then, I hope, there will be fewer "masts" that can be lifted by at least 4 people; packaging that shines a kilometer away; or "birds" that fly exclusively in greenhouse conditions with GPS and without obstacles.

Where are we lagging behind the enemy and where are we winning? And how fast is everything changing here?

Nothing changes by itself. It is either us or the enemy that changes. We either initiate changes or react to them. Not always quickly. Unfortunately.

But the enemy reacts, learns, and becomes more and more dangerous. There are many more Russians, and we still do not have a technological advantage.

To win this war, we need more than just "keeping up" and catching the last train—we need to create a real technological edge on the battlefield. Otherwise, we’ll simply run out.

Is it difficult for a well-known lawyer to be in the army? And what would you like to change or improve in the army as a lawyer?

You probably wanted to ask whether my commanders and brothers and sisters-in-arms have a hard time with me because I was a famous lawyer in civilian life? I think not, but it is not certain. It can be especially difficult for impressionable people if they Google me. But they are strong, they will cope.

I'm not actually a lawyer in the army. I am an aerial reconnaissance officer. And the first thing that should be implemented where it does not exist yet is an after-action review system. At all levels. Starting with the calculation of aerial reconnaissance. This is a continuous process of analyzing and learning from experience, which is essential in order not to make the same mistakes several times; to reduce costs - people, property, time; to increase efficiency. UAV manufacturers need to do similar work.

From a lawyer's point of view, there are many things that can be changed and improved in the army. Starting with the organization of office work, which is 30 years behind civilian practices.

In fact, I don't know of any other state structure, except for the army, where some processes are simply impossible to even track, let alone check. Where some orders are executed, while others simply remain on the desk and "die" without being implemented. And you never know whether your report has been reviewed and rejected, lost, or is still waiting for its time "for months on end."

Even more important, in my opinion, are high-quality official investigations into the fallen and missing. It should not be the case that soldiers whose deaths were witnessed and recorded by their brothers-in-arms remain "missing" for months, years, or forever – as often happens now, if they are unable to retrieve the body. And their families remain in limbo, collecting bits and pieces of information on their own, falling for fraudsters, and having vain hopes for years...

Meanwhile, the Legal Advisory Group you founded is now actively working to help the families of Maidan activists in the courts. Are you involved in these processes?

I can only help now in an organizational and remote way. General coordination, proofreading documents, etc. In the courts, the victims are defended by LAG lawyers – Oksana Mykhalevych, Svitlana Storozhuk, Viktoriya Deyneka, Svitlana Petrakovska, Olha Veretilnyk, Anton Dykan, Tetiana Nikonenko – I cannot list them all here.

The last time I spoke about the Maidan cases was with former special prosecutor Serhiy Horbatiuk, who, by the way, is also currently serving. And the main problem, as far as I understood, is that there is no real punishment in most cases and there will be no more – because the statute of limitations has expired. Is this true?

The Legal Advisory Group started talking about the expiration of the statute of limitations seven years ago. We calculated how long it would take to consider cases in court, based on the speed of consideration and how often hearings are scheduled. We came up with terribly unrealistic terms – 15-20-50 years. This means that it is impossible to complete the proceedings at all, because, in addition to the statute of limitations, there is a limited human life expectancy.

We have already had victims and witnesses die or die during trials. An important investigator and judge died of COVID.

We sounded the alarm and drew attention to the fact that there was no chance of considering even the most high-profile cases of the most terrible crimes, but few people heard us.

A minority of judges organized the trial in such a way that they had a realistic chance of completing the case before the deadline. Some of them succeeded. But the majority simply gave up on the most important trials in our recent history. Of course, the defense took full advantage of this. And so we have what we have.

The problem of the statute of limitations is not only the lack of punishment. If there are no convictions for crimes during the important events of Maidan, it means that we have not received certainty from the state, we have not received an assessment of the events of Maidan. This is the main thing. This is the biggest problem. And the more valuable are the verdicts that do exist in our cases.

But in any case, the fact that these cases were investigated, evidence was collected, charges and indictments were brought, and an indictment was submitted to the court is still very important. If there are no verdicts, it is less legitimate, but history should be told and preserved through these cases and evidence. 

It is very important to preserve these case files after all appeals, cassations, etc. are completed, digitize everything, and after a certain number of years transfer them to a museum or otherwise allow the public to familiarize themselves with these materials.

Finally, doesn't this process undermine your faith in justice? And do the problems in the army undermine your faith in victory?

The process itself cannot undermine faith in justice – it would be much worse if these trials and investigations did not take place. The fact that we have investigated cases of crimes on Maidan and a certain number of verdicts is already a victory. We should not forget this.

In addition, there is no such problem in cases of in absentia proceedings and then in absentia trials (or rather, it is not as acute). And these are all cases against Yanukovych, Zakharchenko, Yakymenko, Sivkovych, Sadovnyk and other Berkut commanders, leaders, deputies, and fighters who have fled and are hiding mostly in Russia.

In other words, if we are going to defeat Russia (and we are), these are extremely important cases, and the verdicts in these cases will be highly important. After all, after the victory over Russia, these defendants will become "reachable". Extradition of the accused and convicted in these cases can and should be a condition for Russia's surrender.