🇺🇦#BarAtWar
Lilya Sekelyk, a standard lawyer-volunteer
I’m just driving around the city, it’s not very much, and in three weeks there are already 12 thousand kilometers.
Interview by Dima Gadomsky. Translation by Olga Panchenko. Photographs by Maria Matiashova. War by russia.
If you want to help Liliya and all Ukrainian lawyers to defend our country, please donate us at INDIEGOGO.
So what are you doing now?
It all started with you when I heard that people needed blood at the Heart Institute on the first day of the war, and there were no donors at all. And I wrote to you to expand this information. I am generally connected with doctors at work, and after that, when I saw the post of 1 + 1 [Ukrainian TV channel] producer, I turned to you for help with doctors, and we organized first aid, and it started. And now we are helping different hospitals. In the first days, it was the support to Kyiv hospitals and the military hospital. Now that the geography has expanded, we are moving to Zhytomyr Oblast to Sumy.
That is, do you coordinate or do you deliver?
Well, this stuff is not tricky. I just make calls, knock out some discounts, we ask the hospital to exchange leftovers and surpluses, sometimes I deliver.
I’m just driving around the city, it’s not very much, and in three weeks there are already 12 thousand kilometers. And help — we help in different ways, there was a need for medicine for 300 hryvnias, but medicine had to be found and delivered.
And what did you do before your practice?
I am a standard lawyer, I had the usual practice of business service, then I was for a while with one deputy, and already there I gradually began to practice medical law. We participated in developing draft laws, our most famous case — “Nasirov v. Sokolov”, I represented Professor Sokolov. This was when Nasirov filed a lawsuit with the Strazhesk and Sokolov Institute of Cardiology, claiming moral damages of one million hryvnias for divulging medical secrets and conducting illegal medical examinations. This was when he was brought from Theophany to Strazhesk, and it was concluded that he could take part in court hearings.
Do you think you are in the right place now? When you are doing all this, would you like to do something more?
I thought about it for a long time, and I can’t understand why I didn’t do anything at all in 2014, I just sent money. But now I’m in my place, only I’m very annoyed by the logistics, I wouldn’t say I like to deliver. During these three weeks, I collected my suitcase four times, and the last time I realized that I could not leave, psychologically. Even for Western Ukraine, I did not plan abroad, it is not mine at all.
And how much time do you plan to live and work, how much time do you give yourself?
I give Kyiv another week, and then I bring the child back here, and she goes to kindergarten.
How did you meet on February 24? What did you do, do you remember your emotions?
It was fucking shit. On the 23rd, I told my husband, Ihor, that we might collect something. And he: everything will be fucking good, everything will be fine. And at 4:30, my kid came to me from her room and said, “Mom, boom”, she was then 2 years and 11 months, now she is three. And I thought that this alarm worked, and then my sister Yulia, who lives next door, called me and said that the war had begun. How did it start? That’s how it started. We got in the car and for some reason first wanted to go to Kozarovychi, we have a dacha (village house) there, and now it’s occupied by Russians. But we stayed with our parents, we didn’t go to Kozarovychi, because we ran out of gas, so we were lucky.
Were you afraid then?
No, I’m not afraid even now. This is an instinct of self-preservation, apparently. I am angry, I am outraged, but I have no fear, like Ukrainian women. I have fear, like a wife, mother, daughter. I decided that if there were Russians, I would not live here.
And why are you doing all this?
Well, first of all, that I was not blamed after the war, that I did nothing. I’m kidding. I do this for the sake of all of us because there is no other way. I am very angry with those who left, I think a lot about how I will communicate after that.
Why?
They are talking shit. It’s one thing when you go away, take out your children, do your job there, and don’t write on Facebook how sad and ashamed you are or repost various stupid posts. And when men leave — it’s generally egh, although I’m for gender equality.
And don’t you think that people who don’t feel opportunities, forces to help, left, and now they don’t create traffic jams here, don’t strain infrastructure.
Maybe, yes, Khlyvnyuk (a famous Ukrainian singer, who joined the armed forces) said about it when we met him while receiving the cargo. But then you shouldn’t talk shit. A friend from Italy wrote to me, she had all the rights to leave — a widow with two children, she asks how are you? I say ok — she answers that yes, at home walls are supporting.
I interviewed with Ilya Kostin, he is now near the front line. And he says that yes, it is different than when he fought in the Donbas in 2015, everyone here helps. Some older man comes to them and brings something, it may not be so necessary, but it is important psychologically.
Perhaps. But you know, I think I’m in a bit of a privileged position, so I reserve the right to be angry.
What will be the end of the war for you?
I do not believe in capitulation or victory in the classical form. I will say an unpopular thing now, but a week ago, I wanted peace at any cost, there was probably a strong setback.
And how do you deal with a negative mood?
I’m cursing, quarreling with Ihor and Yulia, we are worth each other. I tried to drink, it didn’t work. It was the kid’s birthday, we drank a bottle of prosecco, it went like in sand. It does not relieve stress.
What is most valuable to you now?
Passport and phone. Everything valuable was evacuated. I’m afraid the apartment may be destroyed.
Do you see dreams?
Damn, I had such a cool dream two weeks ago as my cousin is getting married, and I argued with him that he did not invite me to the wedding. You can call me a fortune teller, but two weeks before the war, I dreamt that a bomb had fallen in Kyiv to the Dnipro. And so I sit and wait for the dream of the end of the war. In general, I do not dream, I sleep very soundly, I woke up today at half-past nine in the morning.
What was the funniest story you had these days?
It was today. I approach the security guard in the parking lot to pick up the car, say hello, ask, “are you all right”, and he answers — “right is fine, but my left side is paralyzed”.
Andriy Fortunenko, the hero of our last interview, conveyed to you and wished that there is little value in the emotional swings that we are all on now. We will write the next interview with Yuriy Nechayev, what do you want to convey to him?
I think about what we will do after the war, how my attitude to business and clients will change. Although I understand that I have to be neutral to customers, others were surprised by their position. And yet, I am terrified that we will fuck up everything, I am very afraid that it will be like after 2014 when we did not make it. I really want to take the people I met out of this war.
If you want to help Liliya and all Ukrainian lawyers to defend our country, please donate us at INDIEGOGO.
