The Voices for Voices TV Show and Podcast Episode 63 with Guest, Inna Sovsun (Ukrainian Parliament)
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Welcome to this episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast sponsored by Redwood Living. Today, this episode we really have a treat for you, for everybody watching and listening. Voices for Voices, we were fortunate to be able to travel to Ukraine, the capital city of Kyiv, spend some time with the people, talk with the people and share their voices with us, and now with you. So this episode that we're going to be very shortly is going to be with Inna Sovsun. Inna, she's a member of the Ukraine Parliament. She is the deputy head of the Holos Men Party, and she was the first deputy minister of education in science from 2014 to 2016. Inna was very nice, awesome to spend her time with us. We sat down in a coffee shop across the street from the parliament building in Kyiv, had a conversation.
And the conversation as you'll see in here, ranges from wartime in the country of Ukraine, how resilient the people are, how the people of Ukraine are continuing to live as people do. They're fearful to an extent with the [inaudible 00:01:53] provoked Russian aggression, but they continue on with their lives. And Inna, as you'll see, she is also a teacher. So she likes sharing her experiences with others, mentoring others, and likes keeping up-to-date with the current events that are going on. One of the special things about Inna is at the beginning of the full-blown invasion in February of 2022. She was one of the first parliament members of Ukraine to travel to Germany and create relationships about what Germany could do to really help them in the war that was coming together unfortunately. So she was a real trailblazer in that respect. So you'll see, she talks about talking with friends about, "Hey, maybe you can come here and talk with some of our leaders and see if there's any help that can be provided."
And we look back to World War II. Germany was at the forefront of World War II. So lot of history with Germany with having that first contact of Inna traveling over to Germany. And then currently within the parliament she is recently introduced a LGBTQ piece of legislation, which has garnered her some recognition from the western media. So she'll talk about that as well. But as you have seen with our TV show and podcast, we're really bringing the voices of the people wherever they are to you and that's the goal.
So while I was risking my life to an extent, I feel that is very important to be with the people, to see what they're feeling for a few days of being there with the air raid sirens and just seeing how resilient the people are of going on and living their lives. So very excited to now send this episode to Kyiv, Ukraine with my interview with Inna.
Hi everyone. Welcome to the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We have a live edition on remote in Kyiv, Ukraine and very excited and happy to be joined with Inna Sovsun from the Ukrainian Parliament. She's been gracious with her time, so thank you for joining us.
Inna Sovsun:
Thank you for having me.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
You bet. So we have, I think a mutual acquaintance, Roman Sheremeta, he told me to tell you, Hello.
Inna Sovsun:
No, it's okay. Say hello to him.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
And he mentioned in doing research that you are one of the first parliament mentoring members to travel to Germany.
Inna Sovsun:
For multiple reasons. Yeah. Well, to begin with, when the whole big war started, it was very unclear as a member of parliament, what is your job during the wartime? And I think at the beginning, the first two months, basically all I was doing was doing interviews for international media, talking about what is happening in Ukraine. But then I realized that it's not enough and there is with me having the mandate to me being member of parliament, I could do more with lobbying for Ukraine's national interests directly talking to people. And I did have some friends in Germany and they said, we really need some Ukrainian people, preferably someone in some sort of position of power, to talk to the Germans because they don't understand what is happening, that it's not necessarily on top on the agenda and so on and so forth. So I got invited there. I think the first trip was May last year. So that's a year ago, a bit more than a year ago. And I think I took seven, eight trips to Germany. Next is I've coming next week [inaudible 00:06:34].
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Okay. Yeah. So especially for our American audience, as being an American here in Kyiv for five days, seeing the vibrancy of the city, the people, the resiliency after air raid, sirens at 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning.
Inna Sovsun:
But coffee helps.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Yeah, that was going to be the question. What do you think brings that resiliency with Ukrainian people to continue on? Because you can't just stay idle for hours and hours and days and days.
Inna Sovsun:
I think people keep on asking us that, but it's like this, when you hold life is a threat. When the existence of your society is threatened, it becomes existential for you. It's like if I stop moving, if I stop working, if we collapse, then there is no us anymore. I mean not necessarily physically, but that is also a good chance. But Ukraine will not exist anymore. For us it's existential. If we stop fighting then we lose and that is something that it's just survival of us as a nation as its people. So do we get tired? Yes, of course. I just got a text from one of my assistants and she said, sorry, I cannot work right now because we had the whole...
You've been here. Here all the sirens and all the explosions all over the city and so on and so forth. She texted to me and said, I cannot work anymore. I need to sleep for two hours and then I'll get back to do it what I had to do. So yeah, we do this as well 'cause we are humans. But I also think on the other hand what I think and my partner is with the army, he's been servant since day one of the war. And he doesn't have the right to get tired because when you are in the trenches you have to do the job and you cannot complain. And then I think I cannot complain either because the guys and girls over there do not complain. So we just have to keep on fighting.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
So mentally you work through those periods of time, you just take time to rest and then go back at it.
Inna Sovsun:
I go for run.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Okay.
Inna Sovsun:
Yeah, I run. So that's my kind of how I get away from stress as much as possible of course. And then you go for run and there is another air raid alert. Yeah, that happened too to me. But yeah, that's what I do that. Trying to find the healthier ways of coping with the stress of all of this.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Yeah. What got you interested in parliament to begin with?
Inna Sovsun:
This is actually important. I was born in Kharkiv, which is the second biggest city, it's on the east of Ukraine, as well, very close to Russian border and I was born there. It's largely a Russian speaking region. But I was born in a Ukrainian speaking family. As many other people in Kharkiv, I'm actually from Ukrainian speaking families but if you would go to Kharkiv in the '90s, you would never hear Ukrainian language even though like 35% of people would say that this is their native language. But people were ashamed of speaking it publicly. And I was shamed to not speak an Ukrainian in public in the country, which was at the time called Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. And then in the country, which is called Ukraine, if I were to speak Ukrainian on the street, people would look weirdly at me.
And I think that got me into thinking about politics very early on. Why is that? My parents speak this language, this is how I speak. I'm called Ukrainian. But then if I try to speak Ukrainian, people will look weirdly at me and then bully me. I was bullied because I was Ukrainian speaker in kindergarten, which is ridiculous. So I think that they've gotten very early into getting interested in politics overall from the very early stages. So I proceeded to do my bachelor's in political science here in Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. So I was preparing for this and I was working in civil society organizations in non-governmental sector and then in 2014, after the reduction of dignity, I was asked to join the team in the Ministry of Education and Science as first deputy minister of education in science. And I served there for two and a half years and I got back to academia to teach in and so on. But then I was asked to join the team running parliament.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Oh yeah, congratulations. Being the first member with the education, that's big good, first of anything, mostly...
Inna Sovsun:
First said in that sense. But I think that kind of speaks to my early interest in politics and how I chose to proceed it from the very early with me being 16 when I have to choose this.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
So you mentioned teaching.
Inna Sovsun:
Yeah.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
What motivates you when you teach, when you're in front of people speaking, sharing your experiences, talking about a subject matter?
Inna Sovsun:
I teach political science exactly what I was studying, so that makes sense. And I started teaching about 12 years ago. Okay. I've been teaching for 12 years. I keep on asking myself why I keep doing that because truly the salary I'm getting there is just ridiculous. I continue teaching. I teach in two universities in a public and a private one, public literally pay me $50 a month. A month, $50. Literally my time should cost a bit more. But I've been doing that for 12 years and then also teach in a private university which pays a little bit better, which is important for me to have additional income because the MP salary is also not that high. But yeah, I think I keep on saying that this is my very time-consuming hobby because I just like that for a couple of reasons.
One, because I constantly have to keep on reading to keep on updating my knowledge. And I think I would have lost track of it if I were not, because now I have to prepare for classes. Okay, is there anything new thing that can think of? So I have to continue learning myself. Secondly, it keeps me in touch with the younger people. So I understand their feelings, their things they care about and so forth. I'll give you one example of how that was important. And I've been the main initiator for Bill, which is very important to me on the same sex partnerships in Ukraine, it's actually gender neutral. So it can be partnerships for men and women as well, but also for same sex couple. So as I do a lot of work on LGBT community overall, and I realized that 12 years ago, 10 years ago when I was starting teaching, students in the university were kind of uncomfortable talking about this subject matter.
They were unsure and they were not completely sure how to feel about it. They felt that it's wrong to be against it, but they also not to feel uncomfortable to be in favor. So I could sense the audience, it's not something I teach, but when they raise the [inaudible 00:14:31] who'd feel this. Sure. And then about two years ago I suddenly realized that they don't talk about this anymore because it's kind of in norm. It's accepted that you just support LGBT community. And so that is why they don't talk about it anymore. So I could see how the position of the young people on this issue have changed just because I'm talking to them every year. And again, I don't talk about LGBT directly, but because I teach political science, they would come up with different issues that on the agenda in the society. And so I kind of keep track of what is going on there.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
That's awesome and I'm glad you brought that up because that was more research that I saw that bill that you just introduced and especially in the states, that's an issue and that keeps coming up and manifests itself in different ways. So thank you for that work that you're doing because... It's all important. What wouldn't somebody maybe surprised and maybe the process of being in parliament and introducing bills? Is it very similar do you think, to the US manner? Or are there maybe, and you don't have to get into super granular.
Inna Sovsun:
Well, I've never served in the American Congress, so I wouldn't know the details. But I think there are some differences from what I know. Well first we'll try to get into not so many details. I mean politics is pretty much similar everywhere. There are different groups of interests, there are different people that favor different positions. I think the specifics of Ukraine is couple, one, unfortunately, our media is very much controlled by big interest groups. I mean literally controlled. And then if you want to be a party that is we're not supporting this oligarch or that oligarch. We're trying to be independent. Okay, that's great, but where do I speak about this? If all media are controlled by different oligarch groups and that also makes it very different and difficult to promote your initiatives, right? Because I do know how this game works now.
It's like, yeah, you need to get access to a television or big TV channels to promote if you can and the TV channels majority just do not invite you based on merit of your bill or how important the bill is, but very often how much you can offer or whether you are in this pool or that pool. So it has changed a little bit. And I'll give you an example of with LGBT bill, actually all TV channels ask me to speak because it was such a big topic that they couldn't ignore it. So it's not like we cannot overcome this, but it's a bit more difficult because of the large business groups control it, certain media. Again, I understand that this can happen in the US as well, but I think free media is something that is extremely important and it changes the dynamics of politics. I think that is a bit of difference.
Secondly, I think unlike American society, which is probably even... I lived in the states for a year and I follow American politics pretty closely and I understand that in America there are some big issues on which you make decisions which party you support. For instance, abortion. I don't understand the whole debate about abortion. We don't have it here in Ukraine. It's a non-political matter here in Ukraine but in the US apparently it's a big political matter and people vote based on this guy is against abortion, this one is pro-life, this one is for choice and so on and so forth.
But in Ukraine political party are rarely so much like single issue or it's often very muddy. It's not like this party for this and that party, it's for that. Often you have to get coalition in between different parties. For instance, when people ask me what will happen to same sex partnership bills, which parties will support and which will not, I always say it will not be about parties, but individual MPs. So that makes it much more difficult to get votes for your bill because it's not like you can go and talk to the head of the party and he or she says like, yeah, we're going to do this and then yeah, okay, I got 20 votes. You have to talk to different people individually to get the votes. And I think that can happen in American politics as well. But with the society being a bit less structured on different political issues, the political debate is also a bit less structured. But it also gives opportunities because you can persuade different people and it's not like, no... Try to be short. I teach in the universities, I can speak long.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
So no, this is great. That's why we're here to get your opinions, your thoughts, your experiences. Besides support for the people of Ukraine, what would you hope that somebody sitting at home or listening to this would think about Ukraine? About their people, their resiliency because I know the military, given that being a time of war, those conversations are hard. But just the people in general, I've found, at least in my time, people are just down to earth and I don't speak Ukrainian and everybody has tried to help to understand and I've try tried to help. So being in different countries, that's not always the case. So I would think that they're being nice and generous and conversational and friendly in the bigger cities that may be not in the bigger cities. They're just people, like you said, they're human beings.
Inna Sovsun:
Yeah. So what do I say about, do you need to know about Ukrainians?
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Yeah.
Inna Sovsun:
I'll tell you this. If you visit the Ukrainians home, you will never leave being hungry. You will always get lots of food and people are very much trying to be very nice to guests always do unless they come with weapons. But we don't like.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
No, we don't.
Inna Sovsun:
And I think Ukrainians are very tolerant and they can keep up with many things and we also know that Ukraine is not a perfect country apart from it. I mean we have many things which are wrong and we need to fix them. But I think at some point Ukrainians can tolerate and yeah, it's not nice but whatever. But then we come to a point when we're like, no, this is the red line, now we fight.
And it's like, I think that is what Russians have been doing. They've been pushing slowly, [inaudible 00:21:48] and so on and so forth. And then at one point, when you wake up from the bombs you should have seen on, maybe you did see the lines of people trying to get into the military. Literally lines. People were not running away. People were say like, "Oh, now we fight." So I think this historically has been part of Ukrainian history politically. It's like we tolerate, we wait, we probably shouldn't have tolerated many things that we did, but we did. But also we have a huge neighbor. It's kind of very difficult to fight against such a big neighbor. But then at one point we said like, no, that's enough and when we say it's enough, we really fight and we don't give up.
Another part of the Ukrainians political culture, if you add to this, we joke a lot about this is Ukrainians always fight between ourselves. We always like, on multiple issues and it's like you wake up in the morning and you don't know what the big public fight will be about by lunchtime. It's like, oh, did you know that... Sorry, I can't even come up with different thing, 'cause it will take too long to explain. And people are always bickering about things, complaining and so on and so forth. But I think that's a sign of us, A, we can do this. We have the public space and also it's important. If you complain about something on Facebook, on Instagram, everything, those who make decisions will actually read to this. It's important for them to read. So I think this is a sign of very live political culture and very intense, very intense debates.
I've already trained my team, when we are in the middle of some big intense debate, but they always start worrying and I'm like, just relax. It's going to be gone in two days. It'll be another topic for debate today. So yeah, it's slightly annoying part of Ukrainian political culture. But I think that is something that makes us very, very different from Russia because over there they don't fight. They have one position and it's decided over there in Kremlin by Putin himself and they don't have the right to voice any other opinion. In here we do this. This is something that everyone will fight to do. It's like, this is my opinion, I will come and say it and so on and so forth.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
The importance of social media and the Ukrainian culture and then in the government, how important is it because you mentioned that opinions and thoughts are able to be seen and maybe acted or that maybe the issue at least brought up and talked about.
Inna Sovsun:
So as I did mention in the beginning, a big TV channels are very much under different controls. So we do have some independent media, but it's relatively small. But indeed it's very good that social media have become so much more important, particularly the last 5, even 10 years. When I served in the ministry 2014, 2016, already then I couldn't ignore some debates happening on Facebook. I had to react to that. Even if it was a minor group of people, it's not like everybody's involved in Facebook debates but still I had to react. I felt that this is the right thing to do and everybody else does, is like everybody follows what people are saying. I have my team [inaudible 00:25:13] on read through whole comments on Facebook or anything, but I ask my team to do that. This is their job. It's like we need to make sure we understand what people are feeling and many people are just mean people. They're not necessarily very well-behaved on social media.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Same in the state.
Inna Sovsun:
Exactly. We can feel the temperature I think and it's important to feel it.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Yeah. How can people reach out and help the Ukrainians militarily donations or there're some spaces that the money will definitely get through to the right people to get the things that they need?
Inna Sovsun:
Well, A, just spread the word and get into, unpleasant comment fights in social media, that is also important 'cause Russians are, of course, paying lots of troll factories to comment on their behalf. So even that is important is to show that people of the world are still supporting Ukraine. That is already good if you don't have any money to donate. But if you do have money to donate, I would very much ask you to do so. And of course my number one preference is that you donate to some big foundations that are helping Ukrainian army come back alive is the biggest and the most reputable one. Just Google come back alive. They basically provide different stuff for the army, be it the drones, vests or anything. But for the army, we have to be clear about that. Many people say like, oh, we don't want to contribute to the army because I want to contribute to humanitarian cause, well remember that helping in the army in this case is the most humanitarian thing you can do because this is the army that is keeping us a alive to drink our coffee over here.
It's like if the army cannot do this, any humanitarian aid will be pretty much useless. But if you still don't want to donate to the foundation that is working with the army, there are several humanitarian initiatives that you can work. We can probably leave some links below. There is an organization that is called Helping Rebuild Schools that Russians have destroyed, particularly around Kyiv and Chernihiv which is north from Kyiv. So maybe you can do this.
There are several organizations that are helping with medical staff and everything. There is good organization that is helping with, they're installing the solar panels and storage in the hospitals because of the power cuts over the winter, many hospitals just didn't have electricity and I mean all institutions need to have electricity, but with hospitals it's particularly important. People's lives depend on this. So there are many, many things that you can do and there are many good organizations. Big things I will ask you not to do is like don't donate to the Red Cross because truly we don't understand where their money are going to. I would rather donate to local initiatives. They don't take huge salaries out of it and they're really doing good job.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Yeah, I came over to Poland last year. Some of the refugees were resettled there at that time. I was able to do some humanitarian aid work and visit a mother's house. Mothers with small children are pregnant and just seeing the human beings there gave me, I guess this last year, just more time to think of how else can I do it in our organization, being Voices for Voices, trying to find ways of sharing the voice, not just individuals in the United States, but across the world that as an organization that we really need to do that. And so I decided I wanted to come and be with the people and be amongst them, walk amongst them, eat amongst them, talk amongst them and I am just grateful that I was able to do it and to meet you and speak with you, hear your viewpoints and get the message out.
We'll go back into the studio and I'll do a beginning and an end and I'll go together and we'll have links in the description and the show notes. So anything that you want added, have your assistants send those to me.
Inna Sovsun:
Sure.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
And to anybody that's watching or listening, please listen to Inna, check out the organizations if you're able to as somebody, even though I've only been here five days, I've lived through the air raid sirens at three, four o'clock in the morning.
Inna Sovsun:
Did you hear the explosion?
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Oh yeah. Last night was the biggest, I woke up and it's like shaking.
Inna Sovsun:
Yeah. And I'll tell you this, I recently went on a business trip and well one, my son is here in Ukraine. He's 10. His name is Martyn and he's here in Ukraine. I never took him out of the country. I got very much scared when I'm away, but he's here. It's much more scary than when you are here inside. That's point one. But second is on our way back because you cannot fly to Ukraine. We drove from Poland to give and we stayed in the hotel in Poland with a friend. And over the night, about five in the morning, there was apparently some trash car or something that kind of made some very big sound, like very big noise and both me and my friend were sleeping in another room in a hotel. We both in the morning said, did you hear the sound? And she said, yes, I did and me too.
We both woke up shaken because for us that sounded like an explosion. That is what people need to remember. It's like, yeah, you can see Kyiv like, I'm having my nice espresso coffee, which is like espresso tonic. It's very nice actually. But it doesn't mean that voice is not here. Voice here every day and a voice here in our minds every day is something that we can look normal and we try to behave normal. But it's a very scary experience and it's something that none of us chose to go. None of us wanted to live like this. None of us wanted to be like this. My partner is in the army, his children from his first marriage, they're away in another country, he hasn't seen them for over a year. And then he visited them for a week and then he doesn't know when he will see them again. It's all extremely unpleasant and we did nothing to deserve this. That is what I want you to stay with this thing. This is very scary even if we can look normal and if your life can look normal.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us.
Inna Sovsun:
Yeah, thank you.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
And wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors.
Inna Sovsun:
Thank you so much. Thanks.
Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:
Well, I hope you enjoyed watching and listening to our interviewer with Inna. Very lively, very resilient herself and lots of energy and we just want to thank her for her time spending with us, as well as her staff of setting up the interview, which trying to juggle schedules of a Parliament member with my schedule of being there for a few days, we were able to get that put together. So thank you to Inna. Thank you to her staff and we wish Inna and the country as a whole of Ukraine, nothing but the best and the Voices for Voices, we support you in what you're doing and we look forward to the day as you do where you're free and able to return to your homes and villages where some of the people have been displaced.
So if you're able to reach out to some of the resources that Inna spoke about, if you're able to donate monetarily or just really learn about Ukraine and about their resilience. So for this episode, the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I am Justin Alan Hayes, and please be a voice for you or somebody in need.
Please donate to Voices for Voices, a 501c3 nonprofit charity today at: https://www.voicesforvoices.org/shop/p/donate
#thankyou #justinalanhayes #501c3nonprofit #charity #charityfundraiser #organization #podcast #recoveryispossible #nonprofit #mentalhealthmatters #advocate #disabilityinclusion #stigmafree #erastour #taylorswift #taylor #youbelongwithme #maroon5 #memories #music #guitar #studio #singing #voices #sing #epic #alternative #recovery #accessibility #501c3nonprofit #501c3 #abrandnewday #sponsor #legacy #voicesforvoices #thanksbrain #podcast #faith #mentalhealth #mary #jesus #christmas #holidays #motherteresa #survivor #motherangelica #angels #ewtn #stjudes #donatetoday #givingtuesday #givetoday #donate #support #share #gift #human #goingviral #viral #news #media #mentalhealthishealth #theinterview #interview #art #expression #arttherapy #suicideawareness #depression #anxiety
#mentalillness #ronaldmcdonaldhouse #2023 #gala #substancefree
#sleep #nutrition #nontoxicpeople #foofighters #davegrohl #davidgrohl
#taylorhawkins #chesterbennington #linkinpark #recoveryjourney #mensmentalhealth #podcast #project #video #voicesforvoices #501c3 #501c3nonprofit #nonprofit #acceptingdonations #trendingnow #share #addiction #recovery #mentalhealth #addictionrecovery #love #sober #sobriety #soberlife #recoveryispossible #depression #anxiety #mentalhealthawareness #wedorecover #onedayatatime#healing #health #ukraine #standwithukraine