Olha Reshetylova: This war won’t end without South Africa

Ukraine’s first Military Ombudsman, Olha Reshetylova, has been hosted by South Africa - along with Military Ombuds from across the world. In this interview with BizNews, she speaks about President Cyril Ramaphosa's role as mediator - and says: “…this war won't end without South Africa. We need your participation. We need your understanding…” As for US President Donald Trump, she says: “his role is crucial, not only for Ukraine, [but] for the whole world”. In a message to NATO, she reversed the membership invitation by saying: “…it is not a joke, my invitation to the NATO countries to join Ukraine. This is absolutely what I mean. We can share our experience, we can prepare you for a new war…This is something that I'm not sure that different armed forces all over the world understand. This is about understanding the new way of war. This is something that Ukraine can provide to our partners, because nobody except Ukraine and Russia has experience now.”.Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Watch here.Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.995)Ukraine's first Military Ombudsman has just been to South Africa. We speak to Olha Reshetylova. Welcome.Olha (00:14.018)Good morning, good day, and thank you for having me.Chris Steyn (00:17.997)You are welcome. Before I talk about your appointment and your role going forward, I would love to ask you whether you think President Cyril Ramaphosa will be a credible mediator considering South Africa's, or in particular, the African National Congress's long and historic ties with Russia.Olha (00:42.154)This is a quite complicated question, you know, but what I'm definitely sure about that, you know, like this war won't end without South Africa. We need your participation. We need your understanding, deep understanding of this war that for Ukraine, this war is post-colonial. And this is something that South Africans understand very well. And also this war is for our common future because Ukraine is fighting against the network of authoritarian regimes which relies on power. But we need in our future, in our common future of the world, need to rely on law, on democracy. So in this future, which China, Russia, Iran and other authoritarian regimes see, there will be no place for, unfortunately, for African countries, because this is a future for a world of power. Unfortunately, we...we as Ukraine, US, South Africa don't have enough power to defeat them. So we need to build the world of rule of law. They don't want us to do this. That's why this is our common war. This is our common fight. And that's why we hope very much that African countries will join us in this fight. Not as, you know, not with the armed forces, but diplomatic way. That's why we rely on African countries very much, South Africa, firstly, as the most influential state in African continent. So I hope for deep understanding, let's say, from your president, from your government, and that…Olha (03:09.462)…we will do this together.Chris Steyn (03:12.879)How do you feel about the role of United States President Donald Trump? Do you think he will be able to broker a deal that will protect or respect Ukraine's territorial integrity?Olha (03:28.302)One more complicated question. Because everything is very unpredictable now in our times, let's say. the United States role and the President Trump's role is crucial, not only for Ukraine, for the whole world. But to...Olha (03:58.392)….have like his understanding as well to have influence on his view is not easy when it comes to Russian propaganda to Russian influence from different side. They work, unfortunately, we have to recognise it. They work well, very professional when it comes to influence on people's mind. And the president Trump is one of human. He's also sometimes from time to time he's also listening to this propaganda. But for the previous months we see that fortunately he started to understand more about what's going on, about the... you know, from what this war began, that this is not about like...fight of two presidents, let's say, or something. This is about surviving of European nation, which is post-colonial nation. This is about building a new democracy. I hope he understood this. That's why we have more and more support from the United States. I don't know what his role will be.But I see that we, the whole world see that he really, really wants to end the war. But to end the war, you have to defeat the, you know, the authoritarian regime in Russia. So I believe that he will realise that. And he will do this way, not just to sit to sit down to the on the one table and say to them, like, please make a deal. This is not about that. This is about the war of surviving and the war of post-colonial, of metropolis and the post-colonial country.Chris Steyn (06:18.711)Now you are the first Military Ombudsman for the Ukraine. Why were you appointed and what exactly is your role?Olha (06:29.293)You know, as a human rights defender, I've been used to be a human rights defender for a decade. And I've been advocating for the establishing of military ombuds institution in Ukraine for almost 10 years since the war in Ukraine began in 2014, because our army started to grow, we have more and more problems. Unfortunately, in Ukraine, we have this post-Soviet heritage in our armed forces, like when every soldier is a slave of his commander. This is a huge, huge problem. And when the large-scale invasion started, since that time, we have half a million military in Ukraine. This is a huge category of population together with their families. It's about four million people who need support. They have a lot of restrictions in their life because of their serving. It means that they need additional tools for protecting their rights and liberties. So that was my point since I started working on this at very beginning of war. As a human rights defender, I did lot of investigations about grave violations of human rights inside the armed forces. in previous year.If I'm not mistaken, President Zelensky declared that establishing of military ombuds institution was his priority on 2025. We draft a law. He appointed me as his commissioner first, like in 2024. And my first task was to draft a law about military ombuds institution.Olha (08:50.283)So we did that, we passed the law to the parliament, we had a lot of discussions about the model of these institutions and that it took several months to the parliament to make a decision until people went into the streets with protests. They asked, where is the Military Ombudsman? Why?why didn't we have this institution? So as my colleagues from different countries said, that was the first time in the world history that the military ombuds institution was demanded by protests. So this is because the violations of human rights inside the armed forces is a huge problem inside the armed forces. So this is because we really need this institution. And that's why…Olha (09:47.862)…you know, the parliament made this decision immediately after the protest - and several weeks ago the institution was established. I'm not appointed yet formally because I have passed the check of our Security Service. So I passed it previous week and I come back from South Africa and I hope today or tomorrow I will be appointed formally.Chris Steyn (10:18.391)So tell us about your visit to South Africa.Olha (10:22.455)That was great. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone and South African Military Ombuds for a warm hospitality. That was very nice. More than 40 countries participated in this event. And I think this is very symbolic that South Africa host this event for the second time, by the way, the first was in 2019.So we had a lot of bilateral meetings with our colleagues, a very meaningful conference about awareness, about how to reach out people with our problematic, how to communicate with our audience, how…This was very meaningful and very important for me as a newly appointed to see different practices. I was impressed, for example, from my colleague from Malawi. She's a very bright person who is fighting corruption in the armed forces of Malawi. And I'm sure that this is like very, this need of huge braveness to do this. And she is very straight. She is talking about their problems very honestly. And I like this. the same with the South African Ombuds. I think this is like the end of his cadency, of his...being appointed, but he did a lot for recognition of South African institutions in the world. And everybody knows him from, like, mean, colleagues from different countries. And this is also very important that South African institution is one of very active in this network of military ombuds institutions of the world.Chris Steyn (12:46.149)So apart from human rights abuses in the military in Ukraine, what about corruption?Olha (12:53.856)This is not like my mandate because we have different anti-corruption institutions, but to protect people when they want to report about some facts, to help them to connect with different anti-corruption institutions, this is my task. So we do this and I had, I think two or three compliances about corruption in different units. It's not like a huge state corruption, let's say, but in different units. So we work together with the anti-corruption institutions and started investigation. And I hope that in the nearest future, we will have criminal proceeding about that. But my task is not to investigate anti-corruption itself. My task is to protect the servicemen who reported about this fact.Chris Steyn (13:58.149)Now, lastly, do you have any message for NATO?Olha (14:02.541)My message for NATO is to join Ukraine. I have a lot of different meetings with our international partners. They all are very interested in our experience in how we do this. I went to the Netherlands and met the Inspector General who is like my colleague in the armed forces. And we talked a lot about whether their country is prepared for war as needed. My conclusion is that not really, you know, because they don't really understand the scale of problems. They will have, I hope they will never have, but if...if something happened, if the war started, if they will need to join the war. Starting from notification about casualties, which is very important, how to do this, how to communicate with families of killed soldiers, of missing persons, of POWs, prisoners of war. And I don't know, ending with the situation with, I don't know, DNA test. We need to test every serviceman with DNA in case of casualties, how to identify bodies and so on. About trainings, the war is changing daily and we need to understand how to train soldiers properly to be effective on the battlefield. For example, now there is no such a huge need in artillery, but more in using drones and how to survive, how infantry has to survive being attacked by drones every minute. How to do this? How to understand that you won't have rotation maybe for month and you will stay in the front position for so long, for more than 100 days. You will be delivered with…Olha (16:25.19)…food, water, medicine by drones as well. And you will provide the medical treatment by yourself. You won't have medics around. So you have to be trained with the skills at the very beginning, but also this is a mental preparation. You have to be prepared mentally for surviving. This is something that I'm not sure that different armed forces all over the world understand. This is about understanding the new way of war. This is something that Ukraine can provide to our partners, because nobody except Ukraine and Russia has experience now.Unfortunately, we have this experience and we are interested that our partners will be prepared for this situation if needed. That's why it is not a joke, my invitation to the NATO countries to join Ukraine. This is absolutely what I mean. We can share our experience, we can prepare you for a new war.Chris Steyn (17:47.589)Because you have indeed revolutioniSed warfare.Olha (17:56.532)Yes, this is something that we had to do and we have to do daily because we need to survive. We need to... You know, when somebody asks me about what is the main right of the servicemen of Ukrainian defense forces, I say that the main right is the right to victory. They deserve victory. So to...defeat our enemy, which is stronger in many times, you know, we need to be very creative. We need to change our armed forces very quickly. We need to, yes, to do revolution. But this revolution is been doing every day, daily, because we need to change something. We need to be like faster, faster than our enemy.We're not every time successful in this, unfortunately. And that brings us too many casualties. And this is our daily pain. And feeling this pain, this is something that pushes us to be more creative, to find new ways, to find something that will help us to win.Chris Steyn (19:24.751)Thank you. That was Ukraine's first Military Ombudsman, Olha Reshetylova, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, OlhaOlha (19:34.807)Thank you.

Olha Reshetylova: This war won’t end without South Africa

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