Ms Alyona Shkrum:

I thank the Senators for raising all of the points they have made. To be honest, it was not an easy decision for us to come here. It is never an easy decision to leave Ukraine. You feel an amount of guilt when you are somewhere safe abroad. You receive a lot of messages from soldiers, volunteers and others and you miss some of them. It is not only us who feel this guilt. Every Ukrainian feels it sometimes when they are in a safe environment abroad. However, moments and discussions like this and being beside friends like this make every minute of this trip, which is not easy, worth it. This is incredibly important for us. We will bring with us the new strength, inspiration and power to fight and to do as much as we can back to Kyiv and to Ukraine.

I am still a big believer in international law even though it completely failed me and my country at the beginning of the war. I studied international law at Kyiv University and Cambridge University. I worked with refugees through the UN Refugee Agency, UNCHR. I was a big believer and an idealist. When Putin sacrificed everything that had been done in international law over the past 70 years, I felt that I had done something wrong. I felt that I had taken the wrong job and that nothing worked. However, since then, there has been a domino effect of bravery starting from small things in Ukraine such as President Zelenskyy not leaving the capital. He was almost forced to leave at the time but refused. At 5 a.m. on 21 February, we were together near the centre of President Zelenskyy's Administration and where our committee meets. It was still very cold and quite dark and bombs were exploding. We were waiting for the Parliament to open. We made a decision to vote in the Parliament in the centre of Kyiv rather than to go somewhere else that was more secure, despite having a secure shelter where there would be no bombing. However, the decision was made unanimously by all parties to be in Kyiv, at the centre and near the President's offices because we had to show our people and our army that we were not afraid to be there. Since the beginning of the war, we have had more than ten open sessions of our Parliament like that in the centre of Kyiv. We never moved the Parliament anywhere else. This was also part of the domino effect of bravery we received from the army and from volunteers.

This effect spread to many different countries all over the world. I am sure it was not an easy decision for Ireland to abolish the requirement for Ukrainians to hold a visa and to just let everybody come. It was a brave decision and it is still moving. This effect is still going all over the world. It is incredibly inspirational to see. It restores my faith in international law and international humanitarian rules. I pray that all of us, as rules-based societies, and international humanitarian law all over the world will emerge stronger from this horrible war.

The first time I was in the theatre, I was probably 11 or 12 years old. It was a theatre in the centre of Kyiv, near the Parliament, called the Ivan Franko Theatre. It is named for one of our famous writers. The play was George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion. I did not understand anything, but it was a very funny play. It was great. I kept going back to it because all of our most famous actors, who are now on television, were performing in this play in the theatre. Through some very hard times, such as when I broke up with a boyfriend, I would come back to the theatre to see this play. It was a great tradition. I cannot do it right now. The theatre is not functioning and some of the actors, including some very famous ones, are volunteering on the front line. I just got a message that the theatre will reopen. It will start to put on plays again. It would be wonderful to see many of the Senators there in the centre of Kyiv after the victory watching George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalionor any other play in summer. We invite all of the Senators to join us and thank them for their friendship.