Ukrainian Nobel Prize Winner Sees World at a Defining Moment

Oleksandra Matviichuk stepped off the plane in Berlin with a busy schedule. After a tour of the Far East, the Nobel Prize-winning Ukrainian human rights lawyer was in the German capital to deliver a keynote speech, participate in a foreign policy forum, speak with various political parties — and to publicize her country’s cause.

We met on Monday during a fateful week for Ukraine, with first the US pressing Kyiv to agree to a ceasefire plan favorable to Russia before a burst of crisis diplomacy revised the blueprint. Then President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s top aide and chief negotiator, Andriy Yermak, was enveloped in a corruption investigation.