Nobel Peace Prize 2022. Why it happened and what is wrong here

The announcement that the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize was won by the Belarusian political prisoner Ales Bialiatski, the Russian historical and educational society Memorial and the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties caused quite a stir on the Ukrainian Internet. And although we should rejoice that Ukrainians won the Nobel Prize for the first time since the restoration of independence, and indeed for the first time in general, it is a joy with a very bitter aftertaste. Why did this happen, why did not President Volodymyr Zelensky, General Valeriy Zaluzhny, the Armed Forces of Ukraine or even all citizens of Ukraine receive the Nobel Peace Prize this year?

The fact is that according to the rules of the Nobel Committee, nomination of candidates for this year’s award took place from September 1, 2021 to January 31, 2022. And in January of this very long year, Ukraine was of little interest and little known in the world. Let’s be honest, at the end of 2021 and in the first month of 2022, it was difficult to nominate at least someone from Ukraine, besides the Center for Civil Liberties itself.

This explanation does not at all cancel the shameful and humiliating decision of the Nobel Committee, which put the representatives of the two aggressor countries and the victim country on a par. What’s more, the Russians, thanks to whose inaction and apoliticalness their country started the biggest war in Europe since the Second World War, have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for two years in a row! This is really shameful and offensive.

In fact, the committee could have skipped this year, as they did during World War II, as well as 1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, 1972. Indeed, while the guns are talking, giving a peace prize is somehow very strange and would help prevent an embarrassing situation.

Most likely, Ukraine and Zelensky will be nominated for the Nobel Prize next year, but today we would like to calm down the emotions a little and congratulate the Ukrainian Center for Civil Liberties and its head Oleksandra Matviychuk on the victory.

The Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) is a Ukrainian human rights organization founded in 2007. It monitors and analyzes draft laws for compliance with human rights standards, conducts public control over the investigation of crimes committed during Euromaidan, documents political persecution in temporarily occupied Crimea, records human rights violations and war crimes in Donbas, and so on.