Oleksandra Matviichuk in the United States: an interview for the Associated Press, broadcasts on CNN,BBC and NBC Universal, and a meeting with actor Sean Penn

Oleksandra Matviichuk, Head of the Center for Civil Liberties, returned home from the advocacy trip to the United States, which was dedicated to unblocking the American support package. Oleksandra Matviichuk’s advocacy tour went on non-stop from Indianapolis to Chicago and New York and then from Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay to Washington. 

Oleksandra Matviichuk has been successful in gathering packed audiences at top universities in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Stanford and Berkeley. Apart from speaking at universities, Oleksandra had a number of meetings in the White House, the State Department and USAID, and spoke at the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Democratic Institute. The human rights defender met with the Dean of the American civil rights movement and economic and military experts and held several closed meetings in New York, Washington, and San Francisco. All the people Oleksandra spoke to assured her that they would continue to support Ukraine, voiced their solidarity, and some of them even apologized for the U.S. policy quoting Churchill’s saying that America would do the right thing after exhausting all the alternatives.

During her visit, the Head of the Center for Civil Liberties also talked to the editors of The Atlantic magazine, spoke to Americans via CNN, BBC, and NBC Universal TV channels, and gave a series of interviews, in particular, for the Associated Press, the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents in the United States, NPR, the leading Spanish newspaper El Mundo, and others. During this period, Newsweek and the Financial Times also published op-eds by Oleksandra urging support for Ukraine on their websites.

The most informal event of the trip was Oleksandra’s meeting with Sean Penn, an actor and film director who established a connection with Ukraine by filming a documentary about the Russian invasion of 2014 in the last months before the outbreak of the great war. When Russia launched its invasion, Penn founded the Community Organized Relief Support (CORE), a charity to provide aid to Ukrainians.

On behalf of the Center for Civil Liberties, we would like to thank all our partners who contributed to making the tour efficient and productive, ensuring that every hour of the trip benefited the Ukrainian victory.