Lilia Lemoine, Argentinian lawmaker with Milei’s party

Earlier this month, member of Chamber of deputies, the lower house of the National Congress of Argentina, who is part of President Milei’s political force, La Libertad Avanza (LLA), came on an unofficial introductory visit to Ukraine alongside her fellow party member, Argentina’s representative in MERCOSUR, Ivan Dubois to hold a number of meetings with Ukraine’s officials and civic society leaders in a bid to get to know better the country whose cause in the fight against Russian aggression finds so much support in the face of Argentina’s new leader. The tour was organized by the Center for Transatlantic Dialogue and Resilient Ukraine.

A former IT specialist, as well as an artist and prominent cosplayer, Lemoine is relatively new to politics but full of passion to promote Javier Milei’s agenda. Also, as someone whose ancestors were forced to flee Ukraine in the Stalin era, she vehemently supports Ukraine, admitting that modern-day Russia is just as evil as communists and Nazis.

The lawmaker spoke with Ukrinform to explain what issues have been haunting the country for decades, what kind of experience she would like to gain from Ukrainian authorities, how Russian propaganda and disinformation distort people’s worldview in her country, and how she sees Ukraine’s struggle for freedom and independence.

MILEI WAS THE FIRST POLITICIAN TO BRING A UKRAINIAN FLAG INTO PARLIAMENT

- The first question is, of course, about your Ukrainian roots. Do you feel this connection to the country? Does your family story influence your political stance?

- My grandparents were from Ukraine. So I grew up eating Ukrainian food and listening them talk. So I got used to it. And when I was 38 and I got involved in politics, it’s not been too long. After the the invasion, Ukraine came into a spotlight in the West. But I understand that the war began much earlier, not in 2022. It was in 2014, actually. Nobody should invade another country like Russia did.

I started to pay more attention in 2019 – that’s when I came into politics. Our political force didn’t win the election back them but Volodymyr Zelensky did, in Ukraine. We had just bits, chunks of information on Ukraine, we knew just that much… I started researching into his political views and I sort of found him a bit libertarian, just like President Javier Milei of Argentina. I also found out that Ukraine had banned communism as such. Then I felt so proud that you made that move. See, my grandparents had to flee the slaughtering, the Holodomor, one of the worst genocides in history, committed by the Soviets, and now the same people are trying to conquer Ukraine, again. Meanwhile, we in South America are still fighting against communism because the central office of this force is now in Cuba.

Our current president, with whom I have had an honor to work since 2020, is the first politician in our country to ever bring a Ukrainian flag to Parliament when he was working in Congress. That was a really emotional moment for me. Back then, the public opinion in Argentina didn't quite have a stand on Ukraine. People didn't know who was right or wrong because we didn't have any reliable information. And also, we’ve been overwhelmed by Russian propaganda. It's amazing how huge that flow still is to this day.

My colleague, who accompanies me on this trip to Ukraine, Ivan Dubois, member of PARLASUR, the Parlaimentary Assembly of MERCASUR, he’s long known what’s really going on about Russian aggression, but even we, politicians, need to have more information to convey to the average people and our fellow lawmakers. That’s why I wanted to come here, to have more facts, to talk to people.

I realize that, what happens here in Ukraine, in one way or another affects Argentina, too.

- Were you among those who briefed President Milei on the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war, including the historical issues?

- In fact, it wasn't even necessary. He knows these things, he’s aware of history and the context. And he's totally aligned with Volodymyr Zelensky. And also, you don’t have to be a historian to see what Russia is doing. Ukraine regained independence in 1991, and the Russians are now trying to expand their borders. It’s not Ukraine that invaded its neighbor. On the other hand, if you do know history, you should also keep in mind that Russia’s territorial claims look ridiculous. After Kyiv was founded, literally centuries passed before Moscow emerged.

APPEALING TO FOREIGN AUDIENCES, THE RUSSIANS TRY TO PORTRAY THEMSELVES AS GOOD GUYS

- So you might understand why Ukrainians sometimes refer to Moscow as a swamp…

- Exactly, because there used to be a massive swamp where Moscow stands now, at the times when Kyiv was thriving.

Meanwhile, everything that the Russians tell other countries is a big lie. You probably know quite well about the things they tell about Ukraine overseas. It’s mostly that you are a wannabe, “imaginary” country. They claim that Ukrainians are all Nazis. But, basically, anyone who doesn’t align with Russia is a Nazi for the Kremlin.

So they try to portray themselves as the good guys. But if you simply look at the facts, that's just not possible for many, many reasons.

Also, I discovered that all over the world, Libertarians are labeled as Nazis, too.

Russia might not be a communist regime anymore but they have a very important thing in common. They have a disgustingly wealthy leaders, like President Putin, against a poor, struggling population. The same goes for Castro or Maduro. If you look at President Zelensky, he’s just an ordinary guy to me. Yes, the Russians dismiss him as a “clown” because he's an actor, because he has no experience in politics. They same things about Milei in Argentina. But if you look closer, these are really the two brave men fighting for the the freedom of their countries. Not for a political system, not for a government, but for the freedom of their people.

I understand what Russia is, essentially, but we still around 40 percent of the population in Argentina who support this. They just fail to see the truth that’s on the surface: you have a rich man telling you that you should support them, even die for them. It makes no sense.

OUR PARLIAMENT IS INFILTRATED BY RUSSIAN INFLUENCE

- It doesn’t. But people flock around social media and viral videos…

- Yes, so sometimes you have to put it in simple words for the people to understand, to get to the bottom of it. Because most of the people don't spend much time thinking about politics or history or anything post their root sources of information. They just watch TV or some viral videos on YouTube and believe that those videos are the truth.

For years, actors on social media have been telling us that Vladimir Putin is a right winger, that he is a conservative taking care of his people. They work the same way all over the world. It's not just in Ukraine, or Argentina, or Russia – they plant the seed of misinformation all over the world, they spend more money on misinformation than on anything else. What Ukrainians are good at is performing on the battlefield, standing up against an overwhelming Russian force.

- Is Russian influence spreading across mainstream media in Argentina as well?

- In fact, Russia’s state-run media are trying to take over media groups in Argentina. Now they’re doing it through an Uruguay-based company. And many people aren’t even aware of it. But our force remains vigilant. We had a Spanish media person who was trying to purchase to purchase an outlet in Argentina. And the ex-owner of that medium told him he can’t sell it to him because he was selling it to Sputnik.

- And what does the government do about that?

- The government can’t do anything about it. But myself and some journalists highlighted this case, we had some information coming from the United States, too. Even more so, we have our parliament infiltrated by the Russian influence. But we are aware of it and we pay close attention.

- Do you expose all that?

- I do, and because of that, I get attacked constantly in the media. These attacks are really aggressive. If they can’t kill you, they seek to destroy your image. Those are all lies and due to the fact that I serve in Congress, I have a voice, people can hear me, I have my social media, so I can resist.

But we still have more than half of our Parliament occupied by “Kirchnerists”, a leftist movement aligned with Russia and China. Practically, they would be aligned with any country that goes against Western values.

ARGENTINA COULD EXPLORE RECONSTRUCTION PROJECTS IN UKRAINE

- It’s great that you had a chance to come here, have various meetings and learn more about Ukraine. What could be the areas where our two countries could further develop bilateral relations given the impetus given by your president?

- It’s a wide question that is yet to be explored. I’m actually part of the Budget Committee, and I also met here with the head of your Budget Committee, so we’ll be looking into that. A priority for me today is sharing information and spreading awareness. We have a lot to share about the so-called “cultural invasion” (in our case it’s the promotion of the leftist, Marxist ideas among our population).

Business-to-business cooperation is of course important. Both Ukraine and Argentina are very rich countries due to their fertile soil, their industry, their educated people. In fact, we would gladly accept the Ukrainians fleeing the war because we know how hardworking they are. We could also explore reconstruction projects in Ukraine where our workers can be engaged. By the way, I know there are Argentinians fighting in the ranks of your Armed Forces…

Meanwhile, our economic situation isn’t that great. It is gradually getting better but we’re still trying to get our of the swamp of socialism. Our inflation this year is higher than you have, and you are amid a major war. Since last year, we’ve started to become more trustworthy for the world.

- Given the geopoilitical situation and the libertarian vector that your country has taken up, do you feel your country can join international sanctions targeting Russia?

- Yes, we could.

THOSE BUYING GRAIN RUSSIA STOLE FROM UKRAINE MUST ALSO BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE

- One of the points of the Ukrainian peace formula is global food security. Russia has been targeting Ukraine’s port infrastructure to undermine our food exports, especially that of grain, to vulnerable nations around the world. Do you see parallels with the brutal policy of the Holodomor that the Soviet Union once pursued, but at a global scale?

- I actually visited the Holodomor museum in Kyiv, and it left striking impressions. I saw a statue of that little girl, paper-thin from hunger. I have lots of pictures and videos that I'll be posting for the rest of the year, for the people to know about this. And now, indeed, Russia is stealing Ukrainian grain. And in my opinion, whoever buys from Russia that stolen grain should also be seen as a criminal and held accountable, accordingly. If you buy a stolen car, you get in trouble, and that’s how it should be in this case, too.

- Back to the war issue… Your country participated in the inaugural Peace Summit in Switzerland. Do your authorities plan to take part in the second summit?

- I currently have no information to comment as we’re dealing with plenty of economic issues at home. I personally, of course, hope President Milei will be able to attend. He is hundred percent pro-Ukraine, he stands with President Zelensky.

UKRAINE’S ANTI-GRAFT MEASURES ARE SIMILAR TO THOSE TAKEN IN ARGENTINA

- On this visit, what other meetings did you have?

- I met with representatives of the Crimea Platform, the group of Argentine-Ukrainian friendship in the Verkhovna Rada, First Deputy Chair of the Verkhovna Rada Oleksandr Kornienko, the team of the Prosecutor General’s Office and Mr Andriy Kostin (prosecutor general at the time – ed.), Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets, MFA representatives, and other officials. We also had the opportunity to meet with government and non-government actors who fight against Russian disinformation. We also learned about Ukrainian Institute, visited the Kyiv Lavra, the Hostomel airfield, the towns of Moshchun and Irpin. We saw the Boychuk Academy and the Okhmatdyt Hospital, met with the staff of the Zemliachka charity, Arm Women Now NGO, and saw the Azov rallies.

At the meeting with the prosecutor general, we spoke about misinformation and how similar the anti-corruption measures Ukraine is taking are to those that we’re taking in Argentina.

One of the narratives Russia is promoting is that Ukraine was so corrupt that they had to intervene. Well, first of all, even if it were true, that’s not an excuse to invade someone. Secondly, look who’s talking… Corruption in Russia must be worse than in any other country in the region. And thirdly, I see that Ukraine is indeed trying to tackle corruption, exposing schemes, making them visible to the general public. We also attack corruption by exposing it before we go on to fix the problem. But that all takes time.

We are trying to become members of the OECD so we need to comply with certain international norms in this regard. That includes amendments to constitution and several codes.

But Kostin told us how Ukraine had to keep working with the older codes after regaining independence in 1991… It took time to cleanse them of obsolete Soviet norms. And at the meantime, prosecutors still had to deal with the issue. So now Argentinian officials are in the process of deregulating many areas, trying to give more freedoms to people, to set up a free market.

One of the main cases in Argentina was that since 2001, the government started to give money to poor people as social assistance for doing some community work, rather than to provide them with real jobs. But, everybody in Argentina knows that after 24 years of giveaways, the share of the vulnerable population only increased. That's what always happens when you give money and not education or jobs. And within that scheme, there were people, socialists, who acted as shadow intermediaries between that money and its recepients, demanding kickbacks.

Also, they would demand from recipients of that money to go out and protest against the government, otherwise they would block payments. So they had poor people as hostages. So what the government eventually did was to eliminate these intermediaries. And suddenly, there was no one to go out on the streets to protest against the government as no one held people hostage. There was a hotline where people could tip law enforces about these corrupt intermediaries. Since then, we’ve had no major social unrest.

ARGENTINIANS CAN RELATE TO PROBLEM OF RUSSIA-ABDUCTED CHILDREN DUE TO OWN HISTORY

- One of the most important things I wanted to discuss is Russia’s campaign of abducting and removing from Ukraine our children.

- I think it's one of the key points that Argentinians need to know about because during the the dictatorship from 1976 to 1983, we had around 800 kids abducted by the military while their parents vanished. They changed those children’s names. For years, there has been an effort, which saw some success, to find those children. So our country can relate to this problem. Now, Ukraine saw around 20,000 children (confirmed cases) taken by the Russian government to further indoctrinate them.

One day they will try to make them kill their own people. Which is terrible. This is one of the stories, given this very sensitive topics for Argentina, around which I think we can eventually convince the leftists to condemn Putin, leaving all of that ideology stuff behind.

- Even the ICC arrest warrant is related to the crimes against children.

- That’s a universal thing, anyone understands this because this crime is as clear as sky.

IN RUSSIA, ORDINARY PEOPLE MAY NOT BE READY TO EMBRACE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR DICTATOR

- Russia has been actively promoting the term “Global South” – and South America, of course, including your country, Argentina, is part of it as per Moscow’s narrative. What they do is they try to paint a picture where there’s an evil Western world, former colonialists and oppressors, those who exploit your natural resources and who are now supporting Ukraine, and there’s Global South that should definitely side with Russia and its few allies it has…

- So Russia says Argentina is Global South? Never had an idea we are. Anyway, that’s exactly what the leftists have been telling people in Argentina. That’s cultural Marxism, brainwashing. But we are on our way of escaping from all that. The countries where such ideas have rooted firmly are Cuba and Venezuela. By the way, the Maduro force lost the election in Venezuela but they rigged it to remain in power and slammed on protesters, putting them in jail.

And for years, people who have been fleeing Venezuela to Argentina, have been telling us, explaining to us what is going on there. So these people contributed to the change of our people’s mindset, helping them embrace new ideas. If we nations talk to each other at a human level, I believe this can yield change.

I’m sure in countries like Venezuela, North Korea, even Russia maybe, there are people who could flip against their leaders, those dictators, if only they knew the truth. But they are not informed about the truth, or maybe they just don’t want to embrace it, this could also be the case. But there will definitely come a day when they will have no other choice but to accept that truth.

What I want to say is that governments don’t always truly represent their people or reflect their ideas.

Our former president, the worst one actually, Alberto Fernandez, kept making business with Russia even after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He sought to serve as a bridge between Russia and Latin America.

And Christina Kirchner, Fernandez’s ally, made a pact with Iran... Also, they were friends with the dictatorships in Venezuela… They are all buddies. And they would circulate misinformation through universities and various institutions to convince people that Russia and its allies are the good guys and that the collective West are the bad guys.

But if people have access to the truth, if you can spread that truth among the people, especially across social media, that can bring change. Actually, social media very important for us in winning the elections. The authorities tried to censor them, like they now apply censorship in Brazil on X, former Twitter.

- Our top government officials and state institutions are actually active on social media so people can get more information about our country, including by subscribing to those accounts. By the way, are you in touch with our Embassy in Argentina?

- I’m in contact with your Ambassador in Buenos Aires, Yuriy Klymenko. We’ve already had several meetings and started to collaborate, exchange information. But I also find it very important that we do visits. When you travel and meet with officials and civic sector on the ground, it’s always insightful.

HOW CAN A NATION EMBRACING SO MANY JEWISH PILGRIMS BE LABELED AS NAZIS?

- What left the biggest impression on this trip?

- First of all, I'm impressed by how beautiful Ukraine is, and particularly Kyiv. The capital is bigger and prettier than I expected. So I was left really impressed. And I’ve traveled many countries before, as a professional cosplayer and artist. Your food is great, your nature is beautiful. Overall, I think it's one of the most beautiful countries I've ever seen – and I’ve seen a lot. Of course, I was amazed by how great your people are. Meanwhile, propaganda has been claiming that Ukrainians are an uncivilized nation. In fact, the same goes for Argentinians – how they are depicted internationally. But your people, and our people, are really great.

I also traveled across Ukraine for a little bit. Someone took me to Uman, where Ukraine welcomes so many Hassidic Jews for pilgrimage. A beautiful place. Come to think about it, so many Jews flocking into Uman, and Russia still claiming Ukraine is a Nazi country. How can that be the case? Even more so, your President is of Jewish origin. By the way, President Milei is researching Judaism, his grandmother was Jewish. Some say he even eyes converting one day, although truth be told, he’s not a religious person. I’d say he is more of a spiritual person. 

Actually, my grand-grandmother was from Poland, she was Jewish, too. I’ve been to Israel as well. I even have a David’s star tattooed on my arm. My family roots come from Ukraine, Poland, and Italy, and all these countries were in one way or another affected by Nazis, communists, or fascists. My family was forced to escape, and now here we are, once again fighting against this evil.

Ievgen Matiushenko, Kyiv

Photo: Pavlo Bahmut