I had been waiting for weeks to speak with «Vpered’s» chief editor, Svitlana Ovcharenko. Finally, late on a Saturday evening, she called me while I was walking along the waterfront of a small Polish town. My thoughts were in the destroyed Bakhmut, among the dispersed community of Bakhmutians scattered by the war.

Eighty-four-year-old Vasyl from Bakhmut now lives in a retirement home in the Czech Republic. In the newspaper «Vpered», he shared, «They gave me a new mattress! I did not want to lie on the old one, and now I do not want to get up from the new one - it is so comfortable». Comfortable furniture, like everything else of value to the people of Bakhmut, has disappeared in the city's ruins. All that remains are the people, the keys to their destroyed homes, and... the city’s print newspaper.

Readers in the underground

Before the war, the editorial office of the Bakhmut newspaper «Vpered» was located on Peace Street. Chestnut trees grew in the yard, blossoming with soft pink flowers in the spring and dropping shiny brown nuts generously in the fall. Once, they even cracked the windshield of the editorial car.

The eight windows of the office witnessed life: late-night newspaper layouts, meetings with readers, emotions, and debates. Now, only charred trunks and ashes remain. «Those windows are gone, and there is no life behind them. Where there once was a porch where we loved to drink coffee, now there is a black void», says Svitlana Ovcharenko.

The newspaper’s release was only suspended twice: in 1941 when Nazi Germany attacked and on February 24th 2022 - because of the Russian invasion

«Bakhmut was bombed on the first day of the invasion», - Svitlana recalls. - «We had prepared the newspaper on February 23rd, but on the 24th, we could not retrieve it from the printing house in Kramatorsk because the road was under constant fire».

Pro-Russian militants had attempted to seize Bakhmut back in April 2014, but on July 6th of that year, the city returned to Ukrainian control. The war raged 30 kilometres away for eight years, but no one imagined it would reach the city itself.

They would build promenades, lay tiled pavements, develop parks - instead of building defence fortifications

In March, the editor of «Vpered», Svitlana Ovcharenko, left for Odesa with her mother, hoping to wait out the «escalation». She dressed in a tracksuit, packed essential items in a backpack, and slipped two sets of keys - one to the newspaper office and one to her apartment - into her pocket.

The first issue of the newspaper was printed in the Autumn of 2022, in the midst of the war.

During the first months of the war, Svitlana lived glued to the news, keeping track of what was happening across the country. Bakhmut had become one of the most dangerous places on Earth, yet people stayed.

The Russians cut off electricity, gas, and mobile connections, while their propagandists misled the population via radio signals, claiming that everyone had abandoned them, and even local authorities had fled.

«Kyiv has fallen», - blared from the radios

In the first months of the full-scale war, nearly 50 thousand people left the city of 73 thousand. Yet some returned, saying, «There is no one waiting for us there, so there is no point in leaving».

The Russians launched an active offensive in August, and fierce fighting broke out among the city's buildings, the most intense battles since World War II.

Efforts to persuade the remaining residents to leave were unsuccessful. By October, local authorities started bringing in basic heating stoves, firewood, and coal. Every trip outside the basements could be a resident’s last, but nearly 20 thousand people remained in the city.

This jolted Svitlana Ovcharenko out of her stupor. She decided to revive the newspaper to provide accurate information to those who were afraid to leave. There were countless challenges: accounting records, passwords, and access codes had been left behind in Bakhmut. However, thanks to the efforts of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine and a Japanese foundation, the first issue was printed on November 4th 2022, right in the midst of the war.

The first printed edition was brought to Bakhmut by Italian journalists.

The residents took the paper with surprise and joy, believing it was a sign that the end of the war was near. «It was a ray of hope in our hell», they later wrote on social media.

«Vpered» published an interview with the mayor, Oleksiy Reva, who urged civilians to evacuate immediately. «Kyiv has not fallen, and Bakhmut residents will be welcomed in any Ukrainian city», the newspaper wrote. And people began to leave...

Before the war, much had been said about the death of print newspapers in Ukraine. But it turned out that the local newspaper, which people had trusted for years, held great influence. It was no coincidence that Russian occupiers repeatedly forged «Vpered» to spread their propaganda among the locals.

In February 2023, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk reported that fewer than four thousand residents remained in Bakhmut.

One of the last issues of the newspaper was brought to Bakhmut by volunteer Mykhailo Puryshev’s team in May 2023.

In a room lined with sandbags, stacks of newspapers lay in the middle. People with weary faces gathered around, reading with hope, longing to hear they could stay in their homes. But no - the newspaper reported that the city was close to falling under Russian control. On May 20th 2023, Russia declared the complete capture of Bakhmut.

«Should we keep publishing a newspaper for a city that no longer exists?»

In response, Ukrainian soldiers released drone footage showing collapsed roofs, destroyed apartment blocks, burned-out vehicles… a dead, deserted city. Russian forces had taken control of Bakhmut's territory, but the city itself was entirely destroyed. Experts estimate it will take at least ten years to clear the landmines, and another decade to remove the rubble.

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Svitlana Ovcharenko received a call from Serhiy Tomilenko, the head of the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU). He asked whether it made sense to continue publishing the city’s newspaper, given that Bakhmut no longer existed. Ovcharenko responded: «Bakhmut lives in each of us. As long as we breathe, the city remains alive. Because Bakhmut is more than just bricks and concrete. It is us - the people».

The NUJU involved Ovcharenko in the IRMI (International Institute of Regional Press and Information) project, which was implemented in partnership with Fondation Hirondelle and financially supported by Swiss Solidarity.

The newspaper started being delivered across Ukraine to refugee centres where most Bakhmutians now live. There are already 12 such centres. Some former residents of Bakhmut even pay to have the newspaper delivered via Nova Poshta, spending 55 hryvnias (about 5 zlotys) to receive each issue. «Even the smell of the printing ink on Vpered reminds me of home», admits 62-year-old Nadia, who now lives in Poltava and goes to the post office every two weeks to collect the newspaper.

«I can not part with the keys to my bombed-out apartment»

Svitlana Ovcharenko continues to live in Odesa with her elderly mother in a rented apartment. «Where my apartment in Bakhmut once stood, there is now a massive black hole. My mother's home is nothing but ruins. I was asked to donate my keys to the «Time Capsule» installation about Bakhmut, but I can not bring myself to part with them. As long as I have them, there is still hope that one day I will unlock the door to my home».

In one of the newspaper's photo illustrations, keys of various sizes and shapes are laid out on an old fabric. These fragile symbols of lost homes each carry the pain and memories of lives destroyed.

In a newspaper story, 71-year-old Lyudmyla shares her experience: «My husband and I settled on the left bank of the Dnipro. The room is small and without repairs - old wallpaper and outdated plumbing. The windows do not work, and the ventilation is poor. It is painful to compare it to our previous home. So much time has passed, yet we are still adjusting to new streets and these everyday inconveniences».

The topic of lost homes resonates deeply with Svitlana Ovcharenko. I had seen her photos and heard her voice - she struck me as a much younger woman. As if reading my thoughts, Svitlana clarified, «I am already retired. I understand my readers. Like them, I still can not sleep soundly in an unfamiliar bed».

Despite her personal struggles, she continues to publish the newspaper. For a long time, she prepared each issue alone. A colleague, who had found refuge in Sumy Oblast, helped format the text for the eight-page paper.

Sometimes, they would start work at 2 AM and continue until morning—this was the only time they both had access to electricity due to the destruction of the energy system. «I set my alarm for 2 AM, wake up, go to the kitchen, brew coffee, and turn on my laptop. I am in Odesa, my colleague is in Sumy».

Now, four people work with Svitlana on the newspaper. They also manage the website, fill social media with updates and shoot videos.

«Do not repeat Bakhmut’s mistakes»

One of the latest issues of the newspaper features a profile of soldier Volodymyr Andriutsa, call sign «Talent». He was born and lived his entire life in Donetsk Oblast. He died defending Bakhmut. His father, Mykola Andriutsa, recalls with sorrow how long it took his son to accept that Russia had become the enemy.

- There was even a time after 2014 when Volodymyr travelled to Crimea and then to Russia, - recalls Mykola. - Even on a day-to-day level, he saw how much they hated us, Ukrainians. The full-scale war turned him into a true patriot and defender.

Recently, the newspaper editor received a message from an acquaintance asking to anonymously share her husband’s story. He had gone through so much trauma that his life had become a nightmare - he wandered around a foreign city, collecting trash and food scraps, and bringing them back to their rented apartment. His actions seemed senseless, but perhaps he was seeking some personal meaning and stability in the chaos of war.

The people of Bakhmut are now scattered across the world. They are learning to live again, but they still remember their city and dream of returning. «Bakhmut lives as long as we remember it», says Svitlana. And as long as the «Vpered» newspaper keeps them connected, that memory remains alive.

Next to me, a peaceful Polish town drifts off to sleep. In the quiet evening, I ask the editor of the Bakhmut newspaper what she would say to Polish and Ukrainian readers.

- Do not repeat Bakhmut’s mistakes. Do not forget about the war. Protect your lives. Otherwise, nothing will be left but ruins and memories…

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Photos from the «Vpered» newspaper’s archives

Tim Mak:  So are you calling it “Autocracy Inc.” or “Autocracy Incorporated”? 

Applebaum: I mean, Autocracy Inc. sounds cooler. The only problem with it is that, you know, when you hear it, it sounds like it could be I-N-K. You know, Autocracy Ink!

I like that. I think the double meaning actually makes your book like three levels cooler.

The reason why the book has that title is that I spent a long time searching for a metaphor.

The relationship between modern autocracies: they are not an alliance, they are not a bloc. I don't even think they're an axis because axis implies some kind of coordinated activity. What they are more like is a huge international conglomerate within which there are separate companies that cooperate when it suits them, but otherwise do their own thing.

And I think that's the best way to describe a group of countries who have nothing in common ideologically. You have communist China, nationalist Russia, theocratic Iran, Bolivarian Socialist Venezuela… You have these actually quite different styles of leadership and different ways of claiming legitimacy, but they do have a few things in common. One of them is the way in which they use the international financial system. Unlike the most famous dictators of the twentieth century, most of the leaders of these countries are very interested in money, and in hiding money, and in enriching people around them.

They dislike the democratic world. They dislike the language that we use. They don't want to hear any more about human rights or rights at all.

You know, the right to freedom of speech or the right to a free press. They also don't want to hear about transparency. They prefer to conduct their affairs behind a veil of secrecy. They don't want institutions that expose them, whether those are domestic or international.

And all of them see the language of transparency and rights as their most important enemy, whether mostly because that's the language that their domestic opponents use, whether it's the Navalny movement in Russia, or whether it's the Hong Kong democrats in China, or whether it's the complex Venezuelan opposition — they all use that kind of language, because they all understand that those are the things they are deprived of. 

Autocracy Inc. is an attempt to encapsulate that group of countries.

‍And you write a lot about how they've created this network to steal, to launder funds, to oppress people, to surveil, to spread propaganda and disinformation. I read with great interest your argument that this is not Cold War 2.0. Because you argue that ideals are too disparate, they don't have a unified ideology. 

But I also found that as I was reading your book, I sensed a sort of underlying ideology that does kind of bring all these countries together: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. It’s more of a worldview. It’s less of a prescriptive ideology.

But it is this worldview of nihilism and cynicism and hopelessness – a sort of future where the truth is impossible to know, so the public shouldn't even bother trying to find out. Isn’t that what unifies this bloc of anti-Western countries? 

I think you're right that those feelings are what they want to induce in their populations and maybe our populations too. They want people to feel that politics is a realm of confusion and something they can't understand.

They want people to feel cynical and apathetic. They want people to stay out of politics. Authoritarian narratives and authoritarian propaganda vary between a kind of advocacy for the supposed stability and safety of autocracy, as opposed to the chaos and degeneracy of democracy. It sort of varies between that and the Russian version, which is streams of lies so that people feel confused and disoriented and they don't know anymore what's true and what's not.

So you're right that aligns them. You could also say that another thing that aligns them is a kind of anti-enlightenment view of the world, and they don't want rational thinking or science. They want to be free of any checks and balances. 

They want to be free of any obligation to report or respond to the truth. They want to mold and shape the world, according to their somewhat different personal visions. 

That's the way they approach the world. So there are things that unify them. There are also things that make them different.

My goal is to not to claim that they're all the same. But they do have some similar goals, and they share certain interests.

‍Using that, though, can we conceptualise what's happening now in the world as the start of a new Cold War, or do you still think that's the wrong way to look at the problem?

I think that's the wrong way to look at the problem. It's true that it's a war of ideas.  But to say the Cold War implies  a geographical separation, a Berlin Wall and it also implies unity on both sides, which we don't have on either side, actually.

And there is also a lot of the world that doesn't really belong in either camp or switches back and forth. There are a lot of complicated countries like India or Turkey or the Gulf states, which play different roles. Sometimes they align with one side, sometimes they align with another. 

And I also want to stress that something I just said, and I'll emphasise it again, that people who align with the autocratic worldview are found inside democracies, and they aren't a fringe. 

In the United States, they dominate the Republican Party, which is one of our two great political parties. In other countries, they play an important role in political coalitions.

The countries you mentioned as being part of Autocracy Inc.: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and you also add countries like Mali and Zimbabwe as other examples of countries that might fall under this banner. They don't really strike me as innovative, growth places. They don't really strike me as where the future lies. Just to play devil's advocate here, why should we be concerned about them?

First of all, I do think China is a place that's innovative and is very interested in the future of AI and is putting a lot of money into it. So that's a big parenthesis. 

You're certainly right that Mali isn't really a model for anybody.

I don't even think Russia is a model of a society that people want to live in or admire. But we do need to care about them because they care about us.

Although they're not that attractive, they are capable of doing a lot of damage. So their vision is negative. They're very focused on us. They want to undermine us.

Maybe people in London or Paris or Madrid don't wake up in the morning and feel threatened by Russia, China, and North Korea. But there are people in North Korea who wake up every morning and think about us. They're interested in affecting our politics. They're interested in challenging the weaker democratic states.

The Iranian proxies in the Middle East are interested in challenging and overturning the order in the Middle East. They have both military and propaganda and other sources of disruption that they are willing to use against us. We might not want to care about them or think about them, but I didn't think that we have a choice anymore and the evidence is all around us. 

And let me just say a word about Ukraine. Why did Russia invade Ukraine? Part of the reason is that Putin, he's a megalomaniac and he has an idea of himself as the leader of a restored Russian empire, and he's used that language in the past.

But he also did it because Ukraine felt to him like a challenge, an ideological challenge. Ukraine was another large Slavic country that had been very corrupt. It was heading very much in the direction that Russia went, becoming very much like that, and was very dominated in many ways in the business sphere, in particular by Russia. 

And yet the Ukrainians organised and through civic activism, they overthrew that regime, they changed it, and they created a democracy. Sometimes it seems like a pretty rocky democracy, but it's a democracy, nevertheless.

And they, even during the war in Ukraine, have a sense of freedom of speech and ease of conversation that you don't have in Russia and haven't had in Russia for many years

So the model that Ukraine presents, of a country that's aiming to be integrated into Europe that would like to be part of the democratic world, is very threatening to Putin, because the scenario that he has been most afraid of, unlikely though maybe it now seems, is exactly the 2014 Maidan scenario. He's afraid of civic activism organizing to somehow overthrow or threaten him.

The scenes of the people swarming Yanukovych's golden palace at the end of the Maidan revolution must have frightened him because that's what he's afraid of. And so crushing Ukraine is also about crushing that idea and showing Russians that that's not going to work and we're not going to let that kind of country survive.

And the other purpose of the war was to say to America and Europe and the rest of the democratic world: «we don't care about your stupid rules. And we're not bothered by this norm that you say existed since 1945, that we don't change borders in Europe by force. We're not interested in that. And we're going to show you that it doesn't matter. And we're also going to show you that all your language about never again, there'll never be concentration camps, there'll never be torture and murder in Europe – we're going to show you that we don't care about that either.

We're going to set up concentration camps in occupied Ukraine. We're going to kidnap children, take them away from their parents or the institutions they live in. We're going to make them into Russians. And we're going to continue with this project of destroying Ukraine as a nation and as a state».

And that's a deliberate challenge to the way that the Western world thinks

I keep using the word Western. It’s an old habit, but Western is the wrong word – [I should be saying,] the democratic world.

Ukraine is obviously subject to this physical violence that you've outlined. It's also constantly subject to the propagandistic efforts of Russia through things from troll farms, through narratives that they're trying to spread, and dissent within the society. I was really taken by one anecdote you put in the book - [which has] Bill Clinton giving a speech in 2000 and saying, as a joke, that China has been trying to crack down on the internet and everyone in the room laughs. 

…And it was, it was at Johns Hopkins University. You know, it was a room full of people who do political science and foreign policy…

…Smart, smart people who think a lot about the future, and Bill Clinton said that trying to crack down on the Internet was like trying to nail jello to the wall. 

And so thinking about the developments in politics around the world over the last decade, it really does seem that at the core of this book is an idea: that this original promise of the Internet, a globalised world that would be connected and freed from government surveillance and control, that that original promise is kind of dead. 

I know the jury's still out, but I want to get a sense from you: was the development of the Internet over the last decade fundamentally a net positive benefit for human freedom?

The Internet is a reflection of human nature in a certain way. It was an expansion of already existing trends. So it's hard for me to say, to talk about the Internet as a whole, being good or bad. 

I mean, it's just a reflection of what we are like. I think we can say pretty clearly now about social media, which is a particular piece of the Internet, has created a kind of chaos.

It fundamentally changed the way that people understand the world, particularly the political world and political information.

So the way that people now get information is through short bursts of messages on their phone.

And it's also become just much, much easier to create instant propaganda campaigns. The Soviet Union actually used to run what we now would call active measures or fake news campaigns. There's a famous one that grew up around the AIDS virus. They had started a conspiracy theory that the AIDS virus had been an invention of the CIA and they planted it.

The idea was to make a kind of echo chamber where people would hear it from different places and people would believe in it. And I think it had some impact. I think some people around the world believed it.

You can now do a campaign like that in an hour.

You mentioned how the Internet was a reflection of human nature. And there is an assumption that democracy and freedom are natural human callings and that we're kind of drawn to it by the nature of what humanity is.

But you can also see if you look around the world that a lot of people are willing to give up their own freedom for a sense of security, or to give up some freedom as long as the government imposes their view of the world on other people they don't happen to like.

And I wonder if you've grappled with or changed your view on the nature of human beings in the last decade or so.

So my previous book, which is called Twilight of Democracy, was much more about this. It was about the attraction of authoritarian ideas and specifically why they're attractive to people who live in democratic countries.

The more you stare at history books and the deeper you look at the origins of our modern democracies, the easier it is to see that most of humanity through most of history has lived in what we would now describe as autocracy, monarchies, dictatorships. 

Democracies are the exception. There are very few of them. Most of them fail. I think almost all of them have failed at one point or another. They require an enormous amount of effort to keep going and to maintain. Even the ancient scholars, even Plato and Aristotle, wrote about how democracies can decline. So it's not as if this is even a modern phenomenon.

Forms of democracy that were known in the ancient world were also considered to be always at risk of being destroyed by the appeal of a strong man or by disintegration. So I don't think democracy is at all normal.

I think it's probably abnormal. And the attraction that people feel for, you know, for dictators doesn't surprise me at all. 

Let’s place Autocracy Inc. in the context of the ongoing situation in the United States right now. We're speaking right after Donald Trump has survived a shooting attempt and a convention where he seems to have unified the Republican party.

You write near the end of the book about Trump that «if he ever succeeds at directing federal courts and law enforcement at his enemies... then the blending of the autocratic and democratic worlds will be complete».

It doesn't seem like you're super optimistic about what might happen next.

What worries me honestly about Donald Trump is the affinity that he has shown for the dictators that I'm writing about. It's not like it's a secret or you have to look at classified documents.

He talks openly about it, his admiration for Xi Jinping, his admiration for Putin, his admiration even for the North Korean dictator who's destroyed his country.

It's a poor, sad, repressed country in contrast to vibrant, successful South Korea. Yet, Trump admires him because he's brutal and because he stays in power for a long time, I guess. 

The second piece of it is that I worry about Trump’s transactional instincts, particularly in a second term, if he were to win. Trump is not interested in an alliance of democracies or a community of values or America playing a role in supporting the stability and viability of democracy around the world.

He's mostly interested in himself. He's interested in his own money. He's interested in his own perceptions of him. He's interested in his own political stability and right now, he's interested in staying out of jail.

I would be afraid of that in a second term, when he feels much less constrained, that his interests in his own finances and his children's finances would be one of the prime drivers of his foreign policy. In that sense, he would already be like one of the dictators that I've written about.

He could also, you know, he might also be looking to do deals that benefit business people around him.

And I don't know what joining Autocracy Inc would look like. It's not that there would be some pact between America and Russia or America and China, or maybe there would be, but it’s not necessary at all. It's simply that we would begin to behave like those dictatorships.

And our leaders would begin to behave like the leaders of those dictatorships and we're not that far away from it. So it's not difficult to imagine at all.

Just to wrap up this conversation, you dedicated this book to «the optimists», and I have to admit that I'm having a hard time identifying in that camp right now. And so I'm trying to understand, you know, how do we fix the trajectory of the world that you've identified here? Is it fixable? How do we turn away from, you know, a sort of nothing matters worldview towards something more hopeful and more democratic?

I think the short answer involves a lot of people. Everyone. You, me, everyone reading to think about how they can be engaged in whatever country they live in. 

How do you engage in your democracy? How do you play some kind of role? How do you support and insist on supporting the rights that we're all guaranteed in our constitutions? How do you convince others of why that's important?

It's very important to vote. It's very important to participate in the electoral process in other ways. And that's the best advice I can give ordinary people.

I have a whole laundry list in the book of things that governments could do, and they start with the elimination of the institutions that enable kleptocracy in our own societies. That seems to be the easiest and first thing that we can do. 

But I think ordinary people can also, through their own participation, make a difference.

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The original interview titled «Are We in Cold War 2.0?» appeared on the Counteroffensive.news website.

The book will be released in Polish on September 12 by the 'Agora' publishing house.

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On June 20th the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) published an annual report with positive feedback towards the European countries’ efforts in Ukrainian people protection. However, it encouraged them to provide proper protection and support to all seekers of refuge regardless of their ethnicity. Are Ukrainian refugees really more desirable in the EU than emigrants from other countries? Does the attitude towards Ukrainians change? Will they send Ukrainian men of conscription age home, and why, despite the scale of migration, they don’t consider the Ukrainian migrants a problem in the EU? Sestry asked a historian, lawyer and migration specialist about it

‍The EU never called it a crisis

From the perspective of EU residents, the situation that arose after the start of the full-scale war had an entirely different dimension compared to the migration crisis of 2015, as it did not concern African or Middle Eastern countries, but rather close neighbours, citizens of a country that had the status of an EU-associated country and openly declared its intentions to integrate into the European Union, explains Polish historian and political scientist Łukasz Adamski. Two main factors, from his words, were strong sympathy from Europeans, and Poles in particular, and the desire to help:
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- Something similar might have happened in the 1990s after the wars in the Balkans.

The first factor - is that this crisis came from Europe to Europe, the cultural similarity has become very important. The second factor - the lack of purely geographical barriers

Many Ukrainians went to Poland, Slovakia, Hungary - these countries have shared borders with Ukraine. When discussing past migration crises, there has always been a physical barrier - the Mediterranean Sea. And Turkey - a kind of buffer zone, a NATO country that separated Europe from lands where war was waging and where refugees were coming from.

When Ukrainians arrived in EU countries in large numbers at the beginning of the war, none of them called it a crisis. Similarly, such a definition has never been heard in the broader circles of the European Union, notes Başak Yavçan, head of research at the Migration Policy Group in Brussels.

- There can be many reasons for this. Political - EU’s active engagement in the conflict due to the Russian threat, social - acceptance of Ukrainian refugees’ cultural similarity, and also organisational - immediate growth of capacities and solidarity networks for better settlement of the refugees after arrival. And we see that crisis discourse only really appears when there is a management crisis.

Additionally, the reaction of countries that accepted Ukrainians showed what the EU is capable of when it is willing to do something. This has also affected the advancement of integration policies of the recipient countries, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. Even though these countries have been accepting refugees very reluctantly in the past, they turned out to be quite hospitable towards refugees from Ukraine. This deserves praise but obviously leaves a lot to be desired. If such policies only apply to certain groups of people, they conflict with the equality principles and create double standards towards other groups.

Fascination with Ukrainians that is slowly fading

Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the European Commission provided Ukrainians with temporary protection - a unique legal mechanism that gives Ukrainians the rights to residence and employment, social services and freedom of travel within the EU. The Europeans have opened this mechanism for the first time for Ukrainians, and it was a very successful idea, says an immigration lawyer, officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Oleksii Skorbach:

- If we are talking about the refugee status or additional protection that exists in Europe, then those are individual protection options. Meaning the person arrives individually, and their documents, story and country are inspected. And the individual has to undergo a slow and difficult process of explaining personally to foreign officials that they are being persecuted or are in danger at home.

All this is not needed for temporary protection. The sole objective situation in the country the person has fled from already proves the danger. And what is important, temporary protection is provided en masse, meaning one does not have to prove individual endangerment. In this way, countless formalities are put aside, as in such global catastrophes or occupation, the person is often not able to collect the necessary amount of documents or even take their belongings with them. This is why this mechanism is a huge advantage and is genuinely a sign of democracy since it is designed for large numbers of people forced to flee from objective threats.

Although temporary protection has its technicalities - primarily it does not provide subsequent legalisation in the residence country.

At the same time, the EU is interested in the most effective integration of Ukrainians possible. Here too there is a difference between the perception of Ukrainian citizens and emigrants from other countries, says Başak Yavçan, head of the Migration Policy Group in Brussels, referring to research data collected by their centre:

- Ukrainians are considered to be more integrated, their integration policies are more supported - and generally they are more supported. And their relationships with the community that accepted them are assessed as better compared to refugees from non-EU countries.

Although it is not only about Ukrainians themselves in this case, Başak Yavçan notes and reveals an interesting conclusion of her research:

The more effective the local integration policies are, the more favourable attitude towards refugees the people in the communities have

Therefor, the effective reaction mechanisms for refugees’ problems form an overall better attitude towards them.

At the beginning of the full-scale war, there was a massive wave of solidarity with Ukraine, it could even be labelled as Ukrainophilia, believes the Polish historian and politologist Łukasz Adamski. Everyone sympathised, everyone wanted to help. Now the understanding remains that people had to leave Ukraine due to Putin’s criminal war, and we need to help, but the longer the war continues, and the longer the Ukrainians stay abroad, the more mundane problems there are:
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- In Poland, for example, if you ask average Poles (and it is stated in various social surveys) they often say that they lack gratitude from Ukrainians and that they do not like the attitude of «You must do something for us, you must give us something». It is hard for me to judge how justified these claims are, but this general opinion comes from sociology.

The protection does not have retroactive effect

At the same time, Lukasz Adamski is convinced that despite all the similar sociological data and occasional public discontent, both the EU in general and Poland in particular have the resources and willingness to help Ukrainians if the security or energy situation worsens and the EU receives a new wave of migrants from Ukraine:
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- I try not to be overly optimistic, but it seems to me that there is a readiness to help here. Firstly, we all understand that it will not be a massive wave; even if it happens, it will be at the level of one, two, or three million Ukrainians, and both the EU and Poland can manage it. There is also a belief that the Ukrainian state will endure even under difficult conditions and that the Ukrainian population will be able to survive the winter. Moreover:

I would say that Ukrainians - are perfect migrants, and they do not create threats

In this context, in Łukasz Adamski’s opinion, it is rather Ukraine that is facing a threat, as a new wave of migration can undermine the inner Ukrainian endurance and add to the number of problems within - since someone has to work for the army to be able to fight.

Additionally, Ukraine has been urging EU countries for several months to consider ways to facilitate the return of Ukrainian men to their native land. Consultations regarding those who left illegally are ongoing, as stated by Ukraine's Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko, in an interview with Radio Liberty at the end of June.

Ukraine can make any appeals and proposals to the European Union, explaining that we lack people, however, there is international law that prohibits returning people to countries where events threatening their safety are taking place, emphasises Oleksii Skorbach, an immigration lawyer and officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

- Men of conscription age have a constitutional duty to defend their country, but this duty pertains to Ukraine. When it comes to another country, the question arises: why should that country decide for them how they should fulfil their constitutional duty to Ukraine?

There is a rule that you may choose not to provide protection from the outset, but if you have already granted it, it should not have retroactive effect. The cancellation of such protection could turn out to be a much bigger problem

Because all these people received temporary protection precisely because there is a danger in our country. The question is how to address this issue if the danger has not disappeared?
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Photos from Shutterstock

Superhumans, «supers» - that’s what patients are called in the Superhumans rehabilitation centre. This modern clinic specialises in prosthetics, rehabilitation, reconstructive surgery, and psychological support for injured military personnel and civilians. All services are provided to patients free of charge. The facility operates on donations, including from Ukrainian benefactors. Sestry spoke with the CEO of the Superhumans Center, Olga Rudnieva, about the facility's capabilities, current challenges, and the prospects for prosthetics and reconstruction development in Ukraine.

For us, there are no problems. There are challenges.

Nataliia Zhukovska: Olga, the Superhumans Center can host up to 70 monthly patients.  How are you managing with today’s influx of patients?

Olga Rudneva: According to our plan, we were supposed to have up to 50 monthly prosthetic, rehabilitation, and psychological support patients. But we understand that the queue is quite large, and it’s not getting any smaller. Currently, there are over 800 patients on our waiting list. Therefore we’ve raised the monthly amount of patients to 70.

I think we could take in even a hundred patients but it would be financially difficult. After all, this is quite an expensive undertaking.

For example, fifty patients cost over a million dollars just for prosthetic components. And that’s assuming we supply all of them with only basic mechanical prosthetics. However, many people receive things like myoelectric hands and electronic knees at our facility, which are several times more expensive. Additionally, we already have a ward fund in the reconstructive surgery department. We perform facial reconstructions, which are quite complex procedures lasting up to 15 hours, involving flap transplants - a complex of tissues consisting of skin, muscle, and bone fragments with mandatory preservation of blood vessels. The recovery is rather slow, for these are patients with difficult cases. We also perform hearing restoration surgeries. Recently we’ve also started working on eyes, - specifically eye implants. And there are patients, on whom we perform reamputation surgeries due to complications like fragment expulsions, osteophytes, or neuromas. Accordingly, we could add another 45-50 monthly patients. In total, we have 100-110 patients simultaneously at Superhumans each month.

And who’s aiding Superhumans financially?

We don’t use state funds at all. We’ve had this strategy and philosophy since the start. We believe that the state should spend its money on defence, while additional resources can be attracted from donors for humanitarian projects.

Our biggest benefactor - American philanthrop Howard Buffett, who covered yearly prosthetics costs for 500 people.

And this is a significant support for us. We also engage in fundraising. We have a wide circle of benefactors from Ukraine and around the world. We are constantly working on attracting additional resources for various areas - psychological support, prosthetics, and reconstructive surgery.

What are the three biggest problems that the Superhumans Centre encounters today?

There are no problems for us. There are challenges that we address. These challenges can be sorted by areas. People are a major challenge - we require high-quality specialists. Teamwork is a challenge as well since Ukrainian doctors aren’t used to working in teams, and our patients are part of this team. Another challenge is Ukraine’s accessibility. Because when a patient leaves our facility, he enters the real world again. If he encounters difficulties with integration and mobility, it threatens his mental state, and in time he could return to us once again.

And we do not want patients to return for psychological rehabilitation. It's important for us that they integrate into civilian life as quickly as possible.

The challenges include scaling the Superhumans model across Ukraine. The next two centres are set to open in Odesa and Dnipro. When it comes to purely medical challenges, we deal with difficult amputation cases. There’s also infection control because our patients often arrive with numerous infections. Before reaching us, they may have been in 6-7 different hospitals and have picked up infections during evacuation. Many of the injuries are from landmines and explosives, with numerous complications. There are many challenges, but none are insoluble.

You are against Ukrainians receiving prosthetics abroad. Why is that?

We must develop our own expertise in Ukraine, and prepare our specialists to become independent of western medical support. It won’t last forever. Unfortunately, as of today, we’re facing a large number of upper limb amputations, double and even triple amputations that are difficult to work with. Despite that, why should we send our most complicated patients abroad? To educate foreign specialists?

We have everything to completely ensure the installation of prosthetics for our people here, in Ukraine.

Secondly, a prosthetist and a patient are linked for life. Weight changes, changes in the patient's needs regarding the prosthesis - all of these require adjustments, servicing, and fine-tuning. It's simpler to do this in Ukraine. Returning abroad for these adjustments is very costly. It's unlikely for a person to collect the necessary funds to modify, for example, a prosthetic socket or reprogram something in their knee. Consequently, the overwhelming majority of people who were initially fitted with prosthetics abroad end up getting re-fitted in Ukraine over time. And the third factor is the language barrier. We have quite a few patients who received high-quality prosthetics abroad but came to Ukraine for rehabilitation because they didn't receive psychological support abroad due to language barriers or insufficient rehabilitation. These issues highlight the inefficiency of prosthetics abroad. Therefore, we must do everything to provide all these services locally.

How would you rate the current prosthetics level in Ukraine? What has changed in the last few years?

Our prosthetics level is quite high. Foreign experts, who used to come to teach us, now say: «There’s nothing more we can teach you. We should come and learn from you». The number of complex cases we've seen in Ukraine and at Superhumans over the past year matches all of the ones that Walter Reed (an American military hospital - author.) has encountered throughout its history of working with veterans' prosthetics in the U.S. Therefore, we already have the experience. Our prosthesits are constantly learning and have practical skills. This is not only true for Superhumans. Overall, there are a lot of skilled specialists in Ukraine.

The only issue is that we lack upper limb prosthetists. We constantly invite foreign experts to come and help us fit prosthetics for our patients.

But all in all, Ukraine has the experience, and the prosthetists. There just needs to be more of them. And we’re educating them right now, specifically at Lviv Polytechnic on our base and the UNBROKEN base, meaning that these people will soon become available on the job market and will be highly qualified.

Reconstructive surgery - it’s expensive and difficult

In war, people not only lose their limbs but also suffer facial injuries. At the end of February, the Superhumans Center started operating a reconstructive surgery department. How developed is this field in Ukraine?

We perform a considerable number of facial reconstructions and surgical interventions. However, the problem is that these are mostly carried out by doctors specialising in maxillofacial trauma, whereas general surgeons are needed. This is because the procedures involve implants and grafting skin from various body and facial parts. Together with the Ministry of Health, we have started a reform in training and preparing such specialists. We indeed lack experience in this area. Moreover, there are few schools worldwide that train specialists in this field. Together with the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, we are collaborating with France in this direction. Additionally, we need to prepare people who specialize in postoperative care, as patients will require long-term recovery and special care to minimise rejection, infection, and complications.

Is there a sufficient amount of specialists in the field of reconstructive facial surgery? Where do you look for them?

Today, we have joint teams operating - Ukrainian specialists together with their French or Czech colleagues. Each case is documented, broadcast live from the operating room, and discussed with experts. Every surgery is described as a case study and made available to the market so other surgeons can view it and ask questions. Additionally, American and Canadian missions come to help with facial reconstructive surgery. Thanks to the international medical partnership initiated by the First Lady, we have gained access to the world's best surgeons.

Our team of doctors includes those who performed the world's first face transplant operation.

They are interested in our complex cases, and we require their experience. Besides, reconstructive surgery is expensive, as the implants themselves are costly.

People with facial injuries are difficult patients from the perspective of not only physical but psychological recovery. Do they work with psychologists? Is there enough of them?

The first step for a patient at the centre is a meeting with a psychologist and an assessment of their psychological state. Regardless of the newcomer’s condition, their first meeting is with a psychologist who evaluates their mental state. The psychologist is the person who accompanies the patient throughout the entire treatment period. It is quite challenging for the patient to go through the recovery period, which sometimes lasts 3-5 years. Until the person is satisfied with the result, a psychologist has to be by their side, accompanying them through all these interventions.

We wouldn’t have initiated the treatment if we were lacking such specialists

This is not the case where we can figure out in the process that we’re lacking, for example, three specialists. They’re not trained in one night. Therefore, we form a team from the get-go. For instance, the Superhumans Center in Odesa is set to open in February but team-forming and preparation will start in September. In Dnipro, the centre should open in September 2025 but the teams have already started preparing. Hence, the team preparation period for launching a new centre or service is quite time-consuming.

We work with every investor and explain where their money will go

During your work trips abroad, you always encourage the West to engage more actively in supporting Ukraine. What particular aid and support would you like to see from them in the foreseeable future?

We always ask for weapons. This will help us end the war sooner. We understand that the sooner this happens, the less work we will have. We also ask for support for humanitarian projects, especially in education and healthcare. We believe these two areas are crucial for the country to function after the victory. Therefore, we constantly encourage foreign donors to pay attention to them and support us. Whether we are heard depends solely on us - on how we convey our thoughts. If we don't receive funding, it is our problem. It means we are not communicating effectively. After all, there are many problems in the world. We are not the only country at war.

And it is our job to ask for help, to encourage and invite additional resources here

And I believe everyone is doing that - from the President to a mother in Kharkiv who helps his husband on the frontline.

Olga, you once said that you dreamed of meeting Richard Branson and Bono face to face. And you did. You felt inspired by Hillary Clinton - and she invited you to her podcast. What rendezvous do you dream of today?

I think I’ve accomplished everything I dreamed of. There are certain plans for people we’re interested in working with. We would like them to engage in supporting Ukraine more actively. Accordingly, all of them are on our list.

You see, these meetings are not just for Olga Rudneva to somehow satisfy her ego. They’re about what these people can do for Ukraine

They can join support, provide additional funds, resources for certain projects. Therefore, we choose such people ourselves, people who are important for us to work with, and to be led into Ukraine as support. In my personal list, there are people like Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Bezos, and Melinda Gates. These are people who are still not involved in supporting Ukraine on the scale that we would prefer.

We have all been traumatised by the war

Olga, what do you learn from the Superhumans?

In our interactions with patients, we continuously improve our services. We follow their needs and adapt accordingly. The centre evolves, as does our vision of what it should be. This ranges from rebuilding the entire country in terms of accessibility to changing attitudes toward certain things. When you communicate with someone who has lost two, three, or even four limbs and see what they can achieve, it's a profound source of insights. It's a constant learning process. We enhance our personal and team qualities through these interactions. We remodel the centre to make it more convenient for them, ensuring the service is of higher quality and seamless.

Personally, they taught me endurance, and the ability to have less, but do more.

Tha is probably what they teach us every day. They taught us to dream and understand that it's not really about legs and arms, but about where we are going and why we need these limbs. The overwhelming majority of people have four limbs, and the most they use them for is to write angry comments on Facebook. That's the only thing they produce for the outside world. This raises the question of whether they really need their legs and arms to share negative content online. We have our "supers" who don't have four limbs.

They win marathons, climb mountains, learn to write, write books, learn to write with their other hand

You see these people and realise - yes, hands are really needed, and not just as hands, but hands for something meaningful. This understanding of «why?» actually came from our «supers». And there is an incredible gratitude for the standard set of limbs you feel every day because you can save a tremendous amount of energy and do things much faster. You understand that beside you is someone who does no less than you but spends much more effort and health to accomplish something. This gratitude is immense. People come to us with new stories every time. And this interaction is invaluable.

What do Superhumans’ patients dream of and what are they afraid of the most?

This is very individual. It’s hard to generalise this. Of course, everyone dreams of victory, and also - of finding their place in life. We try to help people achieve their dream, which can be divided into goals.

Every day, a person has to know why they get up in the morning and put on their prosthetics.

This is very important because without all this, the rehabilitation process can be prolonged for months, and that's not right. We help our «supers» find a purpose. And they are actually afraid of things that might seem trivial. Their biggest fear is telling their mothers that they have lost a limb. The guys fear that their wives will come, open the door to the ward, see the missing arm or leg, and say, «I told you so». They fear they won't be able to integrate into civilian life. They worry that people will point at them on the street, that they won't be able to connect with people who have never been to war. They fear they might lose their temper because they know they also represent the veteran community. They fear losing friends who are still fighting and not having enough resources to help their comrades who are still at war. Their fears are very much in the context of today. They are more afraid of the social aspects they might face because of their disability.

How do you help yourself when it gets hard emotionally and where do you look for motivation?

It does not get emotionally difficult for me. I don't experience periods of depression or despair. When you realise what you're doing, for whom, and why, you don't need to look for motivation. The difficulty lies purely in logistics - juggling different tasks. For instance, you might have Hillary Clinton on call while a patient requires immediate help, and at the same time, you need to decide who will take out the trash, which somehow falls onto you. It's challenging to manage different tasks simultaneously. You're a living person, and you must distribute the 24 hours you have each day effectively. But emotionally, it's not difficult for me. Despair and depression consume resources that are already very limited. I can't afford to spend them on such trivialities. Resources are limited in time, emotions, and even my knowledge. Therefore, I have to use them as efficiently as possible.

Yes, I hear different human stories every day, but I don't consider, for example, the story of someone losing four limbs as negative. The person is alive, standing in front of me. I understand what I can do for them. If they want to, they will have a wonderful life. Of course, if I were burying my comrades every day or on the frontlines unable to provide help, and people were dying in my arms, I would be emotionally devastated. But I don't see that.

I work with people who survived. These stories are borderline fantasy. These are survivors that have a future.

And if they came to us, they are dreaming of recovery and life. When I see someone in a wheelchair, I already envision them standing on their feet, holding a cup for the first time. I don't see a person without limbs. So, there's nothing for me to worry about. Nothing destroys me because I work with hope every day. And it's not mythical. We've already helped 550 patients who left us on their own two feet. They have lives that go on, families, and they dream and have children. The stories of our «supers» are stories of victory, even if they are incredibly challenging.

Does society have to be prepared for interaction with veterans? What should Ukrainians realise during this war?

All of us are traumatised in different ways, as a consequence of the war. To some, this means a lost home, a lost life, to others, it means losing their loved ones, some are veterans themselves, and some lived abroad and are returning to Ukraine. We all have different traumas and experiences of war. And we have to intertwine these experiences and learn to live together. And this is not a question of whether we have to learn to live with veterans. We need to learn to live with one another overall, to interact with the understanding that anyone standing in front of us has some kind of war trauma. Just like us. To treat each other with respect and understanding. After that, it’s a technical question. What trauma does the person in front of me have and what have they been through? They could’ve gone through the war, been wounded three thousand times, and be less traumatised than someone who’s lived abroad the entire time and came back with immense guilt.

We are all different. There is no special device that we could use to measure each other’s trauma

Our stress resilience and response to trauma is also different. Consequently, it's hard to determine whose trauma is deeper or more damaging to the state and to the individual. Therefore, we need to prepare to live with a range of war experiences within the same country. I believe that this is going to be our greatest challenge yet.

Following the announcements about the next year’s support reduction, Germany sent additional weaponry to Ukraine, among them are new Anti-aircraft weapons, UAVs, rifles and ammunition. But the amount of funds Germany will dedicate to Kyiv’s defence needs in 2025 remains unknown until Autumn.

What is the current mood within the government and the Bundestag? Will the support change, and could the successful raid in Kursk have an impact? Furthermore, how might the latest findings from the investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosions affect relations with Ukraine? These and other questions were addressed in an exclusive interview with Sestry by Roderich Kiesewetter, a member of the largest opposition faction, the CDU/CSU, in the German parliament.

Aid to Ukraine vs «Nord Stream»

Maryna Stepanenko: The German publication Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAS) reports that Germany will limit its aid to Ukraine in the near future. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already called this information manipulative, stating that negotiations regarding the budget for next year are still ongoing in your country. Last time, after lengthy negotiations, the funding level for 2024 was raised from 4 to almost 8 billion euros. What about next year? What is the current mood and thinking in the Bundestag?

Roderich Kiesewetter: The Bundestag and the government have differing views. The government would like to limit aid to Ukraine, with plans to cut it in half in 2025 and finance it outside the federal budget. This is not just indicated by the government itself, but also by the German Chancellor's Office.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defence are advocating for increased support, but Scholz's office has instructed the Ministry of Finance to freeze it. We have an annual budget of around half a billion euros, and debates are focused on the 17 billion that are missing from the federal budget for next year.

And now, to compensate for those funds, the support for Ukraine has to be reduced, especially the military support

This reflects a lack of priorities and a clear position. The problem is that the government, particularly the Chancellor's Office, wants to cut aid to Ukraine for internal reasons. To justify this decision, one could tie it to the leaked information that Ukraine might have destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines. If this is the case, it is not even a punishment but a strange framing of incorrect, reckless information from certain investigative journalists. This does not seem like a coincidence.

It seems intentional that, in the same week when two different groups of investigative journalists try to blame Ukraine for the destruction of the Nord Stream, which could be a covert action by Russia, budget cuts that harm Ukraine are being discussed.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) investigation into the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines suggests the alleged involvement of Ukrainian officials - President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and then-head of the Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi. What are your thoughts on this?

The WSJ article came out in competition with a piece by the German publication Spiegel, which was released a day earlier. Both publications seem to be steering toward the conclusion that Ukrainian officials gave the order to destroy Nord Stream.

The WSJ investigation is indeed puzzling because it claims that Russia was earning billions of euros from Nord Stream, which is not true. Since July 2022, not a single gallon of gas has flowed through the pipeline, and even in the preceding months, only 40 per cent of the promised supply was delivered. So, if Ukraine had destroyed it, they would have essentially been «killing a dead horse». Why would they expend their efforts on that?

Secondly, if Zelenskyy was unable to communicate with the team that received the order to destroy the Nord Stream, why was this team reachable via satellite phone? That also does not add up. Thirdly, there is mention of a person referred to as Volodymyr Z. (in German publications - Wolodymyr Z. or Wladimir S., depending on the transliteration - Author) with a Ukrainian passport, but no one mentions that he could have had other passports, like Diana B. (another suspect according to the investigators' version - Author). She was the owner of the company that rented the yacht «Andromeda», but she also held a Russian passport. She lived in Crimea and is now in Krasnodar, so she is Russian, not Ukrainian. Furthermore, there are no witnesses, there are only secret sources. In my opinion, the WSJ story is inconsistent and implausible.

I do not believe this because if Ukraine had done something like this, it would have become public knowledge and would have caused harm to Kyiv. Therefore, I can not imagine that the Ukrainian government destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines or ordered such an action

The former head of German intelligence, August Hanning, previously suggested that Poland could be involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines. In response to the ongoing investigation, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk advised all initiators and patrons of the blown-up pipelines to «apologise and keep quiet». How do you assess such a statement?

Hanning does not question the findings of these questionable investigative groups, which annoys me, but it does not surprise me. Many former high-ranking officials in Germany have very close ties with Russia and a longstanding pro-Russian tradition, which we need to take into account. Russia uses pro-Russian voices in science, media, economics, and politics for its information warfare and can use them for deeper psychological operations. These individuals may appear authoritative but, in reality, become tools of a hybrid war in favour of Russia.

There is a group in Germany trying to make Ukraine the scapegoat to justify halting support. I can not explain Tusk's role, and we must be very careful not to resort to insinuations or accusations

I know that the German federal prosecutor is very upset about this story because it jeopardises his own investigation - the leak likely came from politically responsible people in the Chancellor's Office. He can not work as he should because those who destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines are now warned. And that is where the danger lies now.

If these individuals are in Russia, they are breathing a sigh of relief since Germany believes that Ukraine destroyed the pipelines. Therefore, we must be very cautious with Hanning's statements, Tusk's remarks, and, in general, with any hasty accusations.

Friends of Russia in Germany

The German prosecutor's office has issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian suspected of sabotaging the Nord Stream pipelines. Two other suspects are also believed to be Ukrainian. Beyond military support, could this impact other areas of cooperation between Germany and Ukraine?

Those who spread these likely fake news stories about the Nord Stream pipelines aim to end German support for Ukraine, undermine trust, and force Ukraine into capitulation. However, they disregard Ukraine's will and strength and fail to consider the Ukrainian population, which does not want to live under a frozen conflict or Russian occupation.

Ukrainians would leave their country if Kyiv were forced into a ceasefire. This is because, on the other side of the border in Russia, brutal violence is being committed against civilians. Ukraine, therefore, does not want to be forced into a ceasefire, as some in Germany, like the Chancellor and others, might prefer. We must be very careful to ensure that no forces on the ground undermine Germany's willingness to support Ukraine.

We have upcoming local elections in Thuringia, Saxony (on September 1), and Brandenburg (on September 22). In these three federal states, there are forces influenced by Russia: the Sarah Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), which are partially funded or influenced by Russia. Thus, we must be very cautious about any context that benefits the Russian Federation. There is no direct funding, but people from these parties receive money for their personal interests and work within the parties.

There is indeed competition within our country between those who want to see the strengthening of an international order based on the rule of law and those who support the principle of «might makes right» - the power of Russia - and who see Ukraine as a necessary sacrifice for peace with Russia

But they do not realise that Russia does not want peace. Russia considers Ukraine a legitimate part of itself. Therefore, the Russians will continue the war against Ukraine and their hybrid war against Moldova and the Baltic countries. There will be no peace. This is the imperial mindset of Russia, which is not understood by those who wish to stop supporting Ukraine.

Returning to the budget and aid, if German lawmakers allocate no more than 4 billion euros to Ukraine in 2025, what will this mean for Ukraine's defence capabilities?

First of all, Germany is not the only supporter and not the strongest one. Other countries that provide more aid relative to their GDP are Denmark, Norway, Poland, the Baltic states, Sweden, Finland, and the United Kingdom. So, there are other, much more reliable partners.

Secondly, 4 billion euros are already planned. They will be invested in spare parts, ammunition, air defence, and so on. But there is no room for additional support from the regular budget. Therefore, it is crucial for Germany to provide Ukraine with additional assistance ranging from 4 to 10 billion euros next year. The government claims that the interest rate on frozen Russian assets should serve Ukraine's interests.

However, there is still no unified position on this in the European Union. This issue is absolutely unclear and depends, for example, on Hungary's support

In any case, the entirety of frozen Russian assets already belongs to Ukraine. This does not replace the necessary support from Germany and other countries. Therefore, the German government's argument is a kind of distraction, an excuse, and an evasion of responsibility.

On February 16, the German Chancellor, together with President Zelenskyy, signed a security agreement. On that date, he committed to supporting Ukraine for as long as needed, within its 1991 borders. But that signature is not worth the ink it is written with if Germany does not increase its support, and the security agreement holds no real value.

Kursk offensive and German Taurus

In February, in one of your interviews, you said, «the war must be brought to Russian territory», and that «Russian military facilities and headquarters must be destroyed». Six months later, the Ukrainian Armed Forces began an operation in the Kursk region. What was your first reaction?

It was a sigh of relief because, in February, I demanded that we allow Ukraine to transfer the war to Russian territory, cut off Russian strongholds and supply chains, and strike Russian positions, ammunition depots, and those responsible for the war - their ministries, command centres, and logistics zones. For this, I was criticised by my party colleagues and some media. Now, I feel vindicated.

Such operations make sense from a military strategy standpoint, are permitted under international law, and, if successful, provide operational advantages. I am a former military officer. Before entering our parliament, I worked for almost 30 years in international organisations, NATO, the European Union, and the Armed Forces. I have a good understanding of what war entails and what is necessary to deter it and conduct successful operations.

On the other hand, as our defence minister said, it is quite normal for a country under attack to conduct war on the aggressor's territory. This is an entirely normal phenomenon in the world - our defence minister said last April on a talk show. But when I mentioned it in February of this year, people responded that this was warmongering. I argued that it was a necessity, and that is indeed the case.

Ukraine's operation in Kursk seems both correct and effective. We will see how sustainable its success will be, but for now, it is a significant victory for Ukraine. This is the right response to those who still believe in appeasement with Russia

Germany does not question the legality of the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Kursk region and does not object to the use of German weapons on Russian territory. However, does the Kursk offensive change the opinions of German politicians about supplying Ukraine with long-range TAURUS missiles?

Unfortunately, no, because in the Social Democratic Party, the faction leader and a very important high-ranking politician in the Chancellor's Office oppose allowing Ukraine to destroy Russian communications, supply chains, etc. This is a deadlock.

My party, the CDU/CSU, strongly supports the transfer of TAURUS missiles, but Chancellor Scholz's office is blocking this. The defence minister wants to proceed with the supply, and the foreign minister supports it as well, but there is no political will because a unanimous government vote is required, and the Social Democratic Party is blocking this issue.

It is necessary, now more than ever, to supply several hundred high-precision, long-range strike systems, such as the TAURUS missiles. We also need to enable our defence industry to produce more tanks, more ammunition and more artillery.

However, this reflects a lack of political will and a deficiency in strategic culture and thinking. It is a spirit of appeasement, reminiscent of Chamberlain in 1938, rather than the approach of Churchill. We have yet to experience a «Churchill moment» in Germany. I am working on changing that

Pressure on Putin

In your opinion, how might the Ukrainian raid impact the situation inside Russia?

In the past, we have seen that when Putin has been under pressure, as during the Wagner Group mutiny, he has shown a preference for negotiations. At that time, he instructed Lukashenko of Belarus to help defuse the tense situation. Lukashenko persuaded Prigozhin to stop and go into exile in Belarus, but Putin later had him killed. So, when Putin is under pressure, he tends to negotiate or make concessions.

The Ukrainian raid provides an opportunity to not only create a buffer zone but also gain leverage in negotiations. For example, if there are future negotiations where Russia is required to withdraw from all of Ukraine, they might be allowed to retain the Kursk region in exchange. This could strengthen Kyiv's negotiating position, but pressure on the Donbas continues to mount. We will see whether the offensive in the Kursk region will ease the situation on other parts of the front, forcing Russia to retreat and redeploy its troops.

Ukraine is losing territory and hundreds of soldiers every day, so Western support needs to increase. In this regard, Germany is sending a very negative signal

Negative for Ukraine because Putin sees that Germany is weak in the knees. It is also problematic for the United States, as those who support isolationists, including Trump, could argue: «Why should we support Ukraine when the Germans are stepping back?» The narrative becomes, «This is Europe's issue, not that of the United States».

It would be a major failure for Germany if we were to lose the United States' support during the upcoming election campaign. That is why we need to invest more and do more. Ukraine must hold its ground and even expand its territory, it should continue the war on Russian soil to be in a better position if forced into negotiations. Ukraine needs to destroy Russian military targets such as missile launchers, airfields, and ammonia depots to limit and, hopefully, stop Russian attacks on Ukrainian critical infrastructure and civilian populations.

I see that there are people in the German government who would like to lift the artificial restriction that the United States and Germany have placed on Ukraine's use of Western weapons on Russian territory. We need countries like the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Scandinavian nations, the United Kingdom, Denmark, and others to increase pressure on Putin, as well as to press Germany to do more. At the moment, Germany is increasingly isolating itself in Europe as a country that does not act according to its economic power. We need to do more and motivate other countries to do the same.

After all, when it comes to rebuilding Ukraine, why should Germany benefit from it? The countries that have genuinely supported Ukraine should be the ones involved in Ukraine's post-war revival.

«We should all fear a weak and unprepared Germany»

Michael Giss, the Commander of the Bundeswehr's Hamburg Regional Command, recently stated that Germany must be prepared for a potential Russian attack within the next five years, given its role as a key NATO transport hub. What is Berlin currently doing to strengthen its defence capabilities?

That is an excellent question. Firstly, it is important to note that we are not talking about five years but rather two to three years. Russia is aware that the West is increasing its pace and losing time and resources. Therefore, they will intensify pressure through disinformation, sabotage and preparation for war over the next two to three years to outpace Europe's efforts.

Secondly, Germany experienced its Zeitenwende in 2022 (referring to Chancellor Olaf Scholz's address to the Bundestag on February 27 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, where Scholz described the attack as a «historic turning point»). However, that was just a speech - it is already history.

The Defence Minister is not receiving the necessary funding. All his requests have been curtailed. He is getting less money than needed to offset inflation and increase soldiers' pay. As a result, the German Armed Forces lack the support needed to improve their position. This situation is expected to worsen in the next two to three years.

By the late 2020s, when the German Armed Forces are truly at the limits of their capabilities, we will need much more fresh funding. We are talking about an additional 300 billion euros by the end of this decade to modernise our military, but they are only receiving between 5 to 10 billion euros - a small fraction of what is required.

This will reduce the capabilities of the Armed Forces and lower the morale of German soldiers. It is a victory for pacifists and the Social Democratic Party, who are deliberately weakening our military. We have Pistorius, the best Defence Minister in the last 20 years, yet he is not getting the necessary funds. He is a Social Democrat, but even he is not receiving the money needed, which isolates him. And that is very unfortunate.

One day, we may wake up to even greater pressure from Russian propaganda and increased Russian aggression. If we do not recover, we could face a situation akin to the second Jena and Auerstedt (the destruction of the Prussian army by Napoleon in 1806 - Author). Therefore, we need to raise this issue within Germany, but our friends and partners must also step up the pressure.

We need a strong Germany, as Radosław Sikorski said 12-13 years ago: «I fear a weak Germany much more than a strong one» 

We should all fear a weak and unprepared Germany because that would be an invitation for Putin.

Cover photo: Action Press/Shutterstock/Rex Features/East News

This project is co-financed by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation as part of the «Support Ukraine» program, implemented by the «Education for Democracy» Foundation

<add-big-frame>After many months of preparation and pilot training, the mighty roar of F-16 engines can finally be heard over Ukraine. The first shipment of 10 American-made fighters is already performing combat missions, and their presence can be felt on the frontlines. <add-big-frame>

<add-big-frame>Our modern fleet is expected to be joined by 20 new planes by the end of the year. While Ukrainian pilots are training, Kyiv could ask NATO member states about recruiting retired pilots. <add-big-frame>

<add-big-frame>«The deadliest F-16 pilot» of the American Air Force, retired Lieutenant Colonel of the United States Air Force Dan Hampton, also known as Two Dogs, is among those wanting to help Ukraine resist Russian aggression. He spoke about his ambitions to fight and how F-16 will turn the tables of this war in an exclusive interview with Sestry. <add-big-frame>

Marina Stepanenko: Mr Hampton, the first F-16s have finally arrived in Ukraine - how do you assess the journey from a categorical «no» to a definitive «yes»?

Dan Hampton: I think snails move faster, but you know, that does not matter anymore. I wish this had happened a year and a half or two years ago, but now that they are here, the focus should be on using them as effectively as possible to win the war.

Mr Hampton, you are one of the most decorated fighter pilots since the Vietnam War. Over your 20-year career, you completed 151 combat missions in the Middle East during both Gulf Wars. From your professional perspective, what should be the main priorities for the 10 aircraft we currently have? How should we use them?

Of course, it depends on your Air Force and your government, but I am confident they will agree that the first priority should be clearing the skies over Ukraine of Russian aircraft. Once you have air superiority and control your skies, you can move freely on the ground and do whatever you need to do. The Ukrainian Air Force has done a great job and shown immense bravery over the past few years, but I think the F-16s have arrived just in time.

If Ukraine can secure its airspace, it will have many opportunities to carry out other necessary operations to drive the Russians out

‍By the end of the year, the number of F-16s in our arsenal is expected to increase to 30. In your opinion, what opportunities will this open up for us?

The real advantage of the F-16, and what truly frightens the Russians, is that this aircraft can perform so many different tasks, and the pilots are trained to execute a wide variety of missions - whether it is close air support, air combat, or taking out surface-to-air missile systems - anything. So, the more aircraft you have, the more flexibility you will have to carry out multiple missions simultaneously, depending on the need.

‍Overall, Ukraine is expected to receive 79 F-16 fighters. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has previously stated that to counter Russia in the sky effectively, we need at least 128 aircraft. So, my question is: will the promised number of F-16s be enough to impact the dynamics of the conflict and strengthen the military capabilities of the Ukrainian Armed Forces?

Absolutely. I mean, 30 aircraft would be a very strong start. That is roughly the size of one United States Air Force fighter squadron. So, if you end up with 79 or 80 aircraft, that is almost three squadrons. You could position them in different parts of the country, allowing them to conduct various types of missions. This would give you significant flexibility to support Ukrainian ground forces and push the Russians back across the border.

In Russia, they are trying to downplay the capabilities and potential impact of the F-16s on the battlefield. Yet, recent attacks suggest that the Russians are also targeting American F-16s by striking airfields. What does this behaviour and these actions from the aggressor indicate?

Desperation. They are trying to downplay the role of the F-16 because they have not been able to control the skies over Ukraine for over two years. And they know it. They know they can not advance on the ground without air superiority. They tried to achieve this in the first 10 days of the war, but the Ukrainians completely shattered them. So, of course, they are going to say things like that. But who believes what the Russians say, right? I mean, they make everything up. They lie. It is propaganda.

If I were there with my colleagues, flying and fighting alongside the Ukrainians, they would not need to find me. I would find them myself. And I am confident your pilots feel the same way. So, it does not matter what the Russians say

United States Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, has stated that he plans to ask President Joe Biden for permission to allow retired pilots to fly on Ukraine's behalf. You have previously mentioned that if you could, you would come to Ukraine and fight on our side. Do you still have that desire?

Absolutely. We are working on it. It is challenging for former officers, but I believe we will make it happen. There is a big difference between a volunteer with a rifle joining the ground forces and a former military officer flying to fight for Ukraine. So, these are political issues that, I hope - really hope - will be resolved very, very soon.

How do you feel about the idea of basing Ukrainian F-16s abroad for security reasons, for example, in Poland? There, you have good runways and maintenance capabilities. After all, Russia has kept its aircraft in Belarus and launched attacks from there.

It is no different. You know, everyone makes a big deal about not using Western weapons to strike Russian territory. But they constantly do it to Ukraine, don’t they? The Russians are using lousy North Korean ammunition, foolish drones from Iran, and other weapons. And, you know, it does not matter.

Regarding the use of Poland, it is a political issue. And since Poland is part of NATO, it makes the situation a bit more complicated. I do not have a definitive answer for you. I think Ukraine aims to have several well-protected airbases within its borders, where these aircraft can be serviced, repaired if necessary, and continue flying.

I do not think Ukraine wants to rely on anyone else, and you should not have to. And if everything goes as it should, you will not need to rely on others. You will get all the help and equipment you need, the political issues will be resolved, and you will win the war.

Do you foresee any logistical challenges in deploying and maintaining the F-16s in Ukraine?

You know, I can not give you a definite answer because I have not seen where these planes are based or what agreements have been made. I know that your government and military are smart enough to think through all of this, and they have had enough time to prepare for the arrival of the F-16s. So, I have to believe that everything necessary to keep these aircraft flying and fighting has already been established.

The United States will provide the F-16s with domestically produced missiles and other advanced weaponry, including the latest version of the AIM-120 AMRAAM air-to-air missile and the AIM-9X short-range air-to-air missile. Can you tell us what this weaponry is capable of?

This is a very good decision because you definitely need this weaponry, and it makes the F-16s significantly more dangerous for the Russians. The AIM-120 AMRAAM is an active radar-guided missile, which means that the aircraft launching it does not need to keep the enemy on its radar. It can fire the missile, which has its own radar inside, and it will head towards the target and destroy it. This allows the launching aircraft to target multiple enemy planes at the same time, and the missile will do the rest.

As for the AIM-9X, it is an infrared missile with a high range. You do not necessarily need to aim directly at the target. You could be sideways to the target, and the AIM-9 will find the heat source and take it out.

So that is good. This is top-notch weaponry used by our Air Force, and I am glad we are providing it to the Ukrainian Air Force

Despite the extensive support of F-16 weaponry, the United States still prohibits strikes deep into Russian territory from these jets. What could change Washington's stance on this matter?

That is a very good question. I do not understand politicians, so I can not figure out what they are thinking. I believe it is foolish to give someone a weapon and then tell them they can only use it up to a certain point.

And if Washington is trying to maintain some sort of friendship with Moscow for whatever reason, I do not see the point. I do not care what Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin think about Western weapons reaching Ukraine. After all, they are attacking Ukraine with their own weapons and those they are receiving from other countries, aren’t they?

So, what is the difference if the situation were reversed? Russia is not going to do anything reckless, like attacking NATO or the United States Even Putin would not go that far

I would like our government to be less timid and say, «Hey, this is your weapon, use it as you see fit». What are we going to do, take it back? I do not think so. So, I believe that once you have the necessary weapons, if the situation allows it, you will be able to use them as you deem appropriate.

What do you think should be the first target if we get the green light from Washington?

Airfields from which they launch those drones at your cities, and where they base their fighters and reconnaissance planes - that is what I would target. I would destroy the airfields and take out as many of their aircraft on the ground as possible. Again, I do not have the same information that your Air Force and government do.

I am confident that right now, they are doing what is best for Ukraine, and in the future, things will only get better

How effective do you think the training of Ukrainian pilots has been, considering that its duration had to be shortened to record lengths?

Yes, that is true. It was shortened. But your pilots were not complete novices. They all flew MiGs or Sukhois and were already fighter pilots. So, it is just a matter of teaching them to operate a new aircraft, learn new tactics and adapt to new equipment. The F-16 is very different from the aircraft they have flown before, but they were more than capable of mastering it.

I believe they were very impressed with the capabilities of the F-16, and they approached it with great enthusiasm and were very pleased to be learning to fly it. And from everything I have heard from my colleagues who trained your pilots, they handled the task very well.

Was the prior experience of flying MiGs or Sukhois more of a hindrance or a helpful skill during training on the F-16?

A bit of both. I have also transitioned from one aircraft to another, and I am sure they had a similar experience. You develop habits from your previous aircraft because all fighters are different. It is not like renting a car. You can not just jump in and fly. They are all different, and you need to learn each one.

And sometimes, especially if you have spent a lot of time on a previous aircraft, you have to unlearn certain habits and develop new ones. So, in that sense, it was a challenge, but no more so than for anyone else. What really helped them is that they are used to flying at speeds of 400 or 500 miles per hour (643 to 804 kilometres per hour), thanks to their previous experience.

They are accustomed to thinking very quickly and operating a jet aircraft. So, these are all good qualities that carry over from one aircraft to another

Can you share how the F-16 has performed in other wars or against similar adversaries in the past?

I participated in both Gulf Wars (the armed conflict from 1990 to 1991, where Iraq faced a coalition led by the United States. - Author), and while those were not Russians, they were using Russian equipment and were trained by Russians. In both cases, after the first 24 to 36 hours, the enemy air force stopped taking to the skies and engaging with us because those who did never made it back home.

I do not take them lightly. I do not underestimate them, but I do not overestimate them either. They have very significant weaknesses, and we are aware of them. We have the tactics and weapons that we have passed on to your pilots to be able to combat them quite effectively.

If you compare all the weapons for the F-16 that have been provided or promised to us with the best Russian weaponry, who would have the advantage, in your opinion?

The F-16 has the edge. It has a much better radar and can deploy a wider array of weapons that we have, much more effectively than the Russians can. So, I am confident that your pilots have been trained on all of this. They know the systems, they know the weapons, and I am sure they will use them correctly. And Ukraine will be proud of them.

‍In 2022, Russia employed S-300 missile systems to strike ground targets in Ukraine. Now, Russian arms manufacturers have once again upgraded this surface-to-air missile defence system for ground offensive operations. Among your achievements is the destruction of 21 such installations. Ukrainian forces may also need to target Russian air defence systems from the sky. What are the biggest challenges in such operations?

This is a very complex question. The mission of hunting down and destroying surface-to-air missile systems is the most dangerous in any air force, in any theatre of operations. It is far more risky than close air combat or shooting down enemy fighters in the air.

The Russians, to their credit, have always had good systems, and they have many of them. One of the primary challenges in any of these situations is pinpointing their exact location. We have assets in space and other places that can locate them.

I hope that all this information will be passed on to the Ukrainian Air Force so they can use it to do what needs to be done to eliminate these air defence systems.

This project is co-funded by the Polish-American Freedom Foundation as part of the «Support Ukraine» program, implemented by the «Education for Democracy» Foundation

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Mariia Gorska: On July 1st Ukraine began the negotiations on joining the EU. It is a unique case - a country resisting an aggressor is simultaneously going into the EU. As an expert on the European Commission in the 2000s and an employee of the Polish Committee for European Integration in the 1990s, how do you see this moment in Ukraine and Poland’s history?

Małgorzata Bonikowska: This is certainly a precedent. The EU has never faced such a situation before. None of the candidate countries have been in a state of open war. The Republic of Cyprus was the only country that joined while having problems at the borders.

But it was the war that led the EU, as a union of twenty-seven, to make decisions important to its history. Not only did it unequivocally condemn Russia and support the country that suffered from the attack and brutal invasion, but it also adopted more than a dozen packages of sanctions against Russia and introduced joint mechanisms of financial and military assistance to Ukraine.

This is also a precedent in the European Union - joint arms purchases from a common budget, the so-called «European Peace Facility». The EU has never engaged in this before.

This war has put the structures of the European Union into a state of shock. In response, certain measures have been taken that resulted in an expansion and a quick start of the negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova

Processes that could not be moved for years, if not decades, are now happening.

What are the main tasks for Ukraine during the negotiations?

While the war in Ukraine is an absolutely extraordinary situation, the process of negotiations about joining the EU is a standard procedure.

Poland, like other countries that joined the EU, went through this process. It involves a country that wants to join the European Union negotiating to adopt the entire legislative base and the main principles of the EU's functioning. Therefore, these are negotiations in which the position of the negotiating country is weak because, as a rule, this country still has to accept everything in the end.

The only question is how quickly and to what extent. The negotiations are based on clearly defined principles. There are 35 negotiation chapters concerning specific areas of state functioning, such as agriculture, environmental protection, education, the economy and healthcare. The negotiations concern how quickly and to what extent the country wishing to join the EU will adapt to the EU legislation and internal rules.

Transition periods are possible, meaning a slower adaptation. In exceptional cases, exemptions, known as derogations from EU rules, are possible. For example, Malta has additional guarantees against the purchase of property by citizens of other countries.

Where do the biggest problems lie in Ukraine’s case?

First and foremost, it is corruption - a massive problem. It concerns the whole functioning of the state in habits formed back in the Soviet time.

The organisation of the state largely relies on agreements and oligarchy, and society has become accustomed to this. Corruption, of course, exists everywhere to some small extent, including in the EU, but such cases are stigmatised. There is an apparatus to hold people accountable in such situations.

However, these are absolute exceptions and are unequivocally condemned. Upon joining the EU, Ukraine will need to adjust the functioning of its state, relying on strong institutions and transparent procedures.

How long can Ukraine's integration take, and is it realistic to implement changes during the war while simultaneously defending the country?

The EU understands that the war is an additional challenge that places a tremendous burden on the Ukrainian state.

At the same time, Ukraine receives significant military and financial assistance. Therefore, it is important that there is no doubt about where this aid is going and that it is not subject to corruption mechanisms. When we talk about the plan for Ukraine's reconstruction after the war, we think not only about where to get the funds, in what scale, and how to modernise the country, but also how to ensure these funds do not leak «to the side» into private hands.

This is important, and I believe that one of the methods is close cooperation with foreign advisors from EU countries, including Poland.

Before the start of negotiations, the President of Ukraine approved a delegation to take part in negotiating the joining with the EU that was comprised of government officials, diplomats and experts. How important is the composition of this group and what skills should these people have?

Negotiation group is a formal structure, created by the government of the country joining the EU.

Each negotiation area is headed by a deputy minister who coordinates the work of an entire team. This team comprises individuals with substantial knowledge of the areas of discussion. Usually, these are people appointed by the relevant ministries - ministry employees or external experts. Exactly these individuals, using their professional knowledge, must assess the implications of implementing EU norms in Ukraine and their impact on specific sectors. Their role is to analyze whether there is a need for delays or even deviations from EU rules, and if so, to what extent, as well as how to prepare the legal framework in your country for making the necessary changes.

Ukraine is subject to a screening process which involves analysing the entire legal situation for discrepancies, gaps in legislation, lack of regulations and the need for new ones. The negotiating team will provide recommendations on creating regulatory documents that will need to be submitted to the Ukrainian parliament. As a result of the negotiations, Ukraine's legal situation should closely align with the EU's legal framework, so that there are no discrepancies at the time of accession.

This concerns the «Acquis communautaire» legislation, meaning all the legal norms, directives and standards that member states must adhere to. At the same time, however, each country has the right to negotiate a longer implementation period for these rules in particularly challenging areas. In Poland's case, for example, this was environmental legislation, as it set requirements too high for our country's development stage at that time. We joined the EU in 2004, and the transition period lasted until 2017 because we understood that we could not implement all EU standards in this area faster.

The Ukrainian side together with the EU needs to identify such issues that pose clear difficulties and agree on an extended period for implementing EU norms in these areas.

According to expert estimates, negotiations with the EU typically take an average of 5-7 years. However, the war in Ukraine is accelerating Ukraine's path to the West. How long can the negotiation and accession process take in our case?

War and accession are two different things. The war makes the negotiations difficult for Ukraine, though it will not accelerate them but rather slow them down

This is because the EU is already a quite complex organisation, comprising 27 countries with significant differences among them, as well as in their political systems. The accession of each new country poses additional challenges. Therefore, the EU tries to prepare both itself and the acceding country for this moment, minimising the differences. The greater the differences, the greater the internal problems for the EU as a whole.

We cannot allow a situation where enlargement undermines the entire structure from within.

There are many concerns on the EU’s side regarding the next enlargement. We do not want to weaken but only strengthen our community. That is why negotiations with Ukraine will be long and complex. In Poland's case, they lasted five years, and in Spain's case - nearly eight, while Greece had shorter negotiations (four years and five months, - Edit.).

Ukraine is a large and populous country. A large country means large problems. Look at the situation in agriculture and the conflict between Poland and Ukraine over grain. There will be more such situations in many other areas. Even without the war, there are many challenges between Ukraine and the EU, so negotiations will not be easy, and the moment of Ukraine's accession to the EU will be challenging for both sides.

What is the good news for Ukraine?

The good news is that there is a clear will to negotiate and that Ukraine is not only a candidate country but has already embarked on the path, with all twenty-seven EU member states convinced that Ukraine is a European country that must one day be a member of the European Union.

This is very good news for Ukraine. A few years ago, this prospect did not exist. Today, it is a reality materialising before our eyes.

What demands will Poland have in the negotiations with Ukraine? What will prevail - partnership or competition?

Ukraine is negotiating not with individual countries but with the European Commission.

The process is managed by the European Commission and the Directorate-General for Enlargement, which negotiates on behalf of all member states. The main idea is that the EU wants to expand and eventually accept Ukraine.

However, EU countries have different approaches to specific issues related to Ukraine's accession, depending on their own situations. There are countries where agriculture is a crucial aspect of the economy and is strong, such as Poland, France, and Italy, and there are those where agriculture is marginal, like Luxembourg.

Therefore, challenges like the ones posed by Ukrainian agriculture to the EU are crucial for some countries and less important for others. The same applies to other sectors.

Each member state analyses this through its own lens and provides the European Commission with specific comments and proposals regarding their preferences or concerns. It involves preserving the interests and positions of certain sectors and groups - entrepreneurs, farmers, the financial industry, the automotive industry - both in the EU and in Ukraine. Therefore, it is a process of reconciling very narrow details and specific technical issues.

In some respects, the negotiation process may seem like a step back for Ukraine. Due to the war, Ukraine suddenly became part of the European market at an accelerated pace, as the EU decided to help the Ukrainian economy by removing trade barriers. However, this was a temporary measure, driven by the Russian invasion and the desire to ensure Ukraine's survival.

Meanwhile, the war drags on, and we are facing a precedent where a country that is not in the EU has de-facto gained the same prerogatives that member-states have

This also applies to work permits and the free movement of people. During its negotiations with the EU, Poland particularly struggled with this issue, and we were unable to obtain the ability to freely operate in the European labour market from the first day of membership.

The only two countries that allowed us this opportunity at the time were the United Kingdom (which was then in the EU) and Ireland. All other EU countries imposed a seven-year transition period, meaning Poles could not work in EU countries without additional permits and procedures related to their employment.

Ukrainians, due to the war, have been granted the ability to move and work freely. In Poland, they receive a PESEL number, which means they can legally work, pay taxes, and, importantly, do not need to obtain any additional permits.

This would not have happened if it were not for the war.

How can Poland help Ukraine during the negotiations?

I believe Poland can do two things for Ukraine. First, we have gone through a similar process, so we have fresh practical experience to share. We negotiated our EU accession from 1998 to 2003. The people involved in this process are still active today. They can be asked for consultations, for example, as advisors to the Ukrainian government, to make the process as professional and efficient as possible.

Second, Poland, clearly interested in Ukraine's EU membership, can act as a bridge for Ukraine. Not all EU countries have such a clear vision of the future EU with Ukraine inside. There is a will, but some countries have significant reservations about how Ukraine functions and what it truly offers.

For example, Germany has many doubts. So today, Poland can play the role of a bridge, also connecting the cultural and historical closeness of our peoples. We can fulfil a similar role to the one Germany played for Poland in the late 1990s.

They wanted expansion and helped Western Europe not only recognise its inevitability but also see the benefits. Today, Poland can do the same for Ukraine.

What are the main lessons or advice you would give to Ukraine based on the Polish experience?

First and foremost, Ukraine needs to understand that everyone sympathises with it regarding the war. War is a terrible thing. But negotiations are different. Despite Ukraine's resistance to Russia, it will not receive special preferential treatment in the negotiations. It must become an EU member and accept the rules of this organisation.

Ukrainians have become very demanding. They feel they deserve everything because they are at war. This mindset is highly undesirable in negotiations. Ukraine must understand that it is joining a pool of countries that have agreed on a certain way of functioning, and excessive pressure and a lack of compromise will only lead to one thing - prolonging the negotiations.

The quick path to Ukraine's victory is joining NATO. However, the latest summit showed that NATO countries are not ready to offer Ukraine membership now. What should our actions be, and what are the prospects?

Firstly, continue fighting. Ukraine must withstand. No one knows how long - one year, two years - how long it will take. As long as the war in Ukraine continues, NATO will not accept Ukraine because the Alliance itself would be in a state of war.

After the end of the war, Ukraine’s situation will change - the Ukrainian army will be very experienced in combat and will be able to train the armies of the member-states itself. Accession to NATO will definitely be a step that will strengthen the Alliance.

We do not know how events will unfold in the United States and who will win the elections. However, an important part of thinking about Ukraine's future will be considerations about ending the war.

While Ukraine fights, Europe must remilitarise at an accelerated pace to provide Ukraine with enhanced assistance. Everyone here is racing against time, but not only us - Russia too. Look at the impact of sanctions - they have already led to Gazprom having negative financial results, meaning Russia's monetary resources for waging war are slowly running out. The faster their economy declines, the fewer funds Putin will have to finance the war, and the sooner it will end.

At some point, Russia will realise that it is not going to win this war and will come to the negotiating table. Otherwise, the negotiations will boil down to demands for Russia to retain the occupied territories and for Ukraine to be recognised as a buffer zone between Russia and NATO.

This situation is unacceptable for Ukraine and for the West.

Countries from the so-called axis of evil, along with some countries from the Global South, are helping Russia survive despite sanctions. How do we deal with this?

This is a matter of Western diplomacy, but the news is not so bad here. Look, in our camp, we have Australia, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.

Regarding other countries, we must negotiate and cooperate. Indeed, Russia is not alone and has its friends, allies, and countries it communicates with. But these are not always countries hostile to the West. These are often neutral countries or even partners of the West, like, for example, India.

Recently, we saw photographs of Prime Minister Narendra Modi visiting Putin. From India's perspective, this meeting was desirable, but the West perceived it negatively. Europe and the USA must be very active in the countries of the Global South. Not only transmitting our narrative and our vision of the war but also putting concrete proposals on the table that are more attractive to these countries than what comes from Russia.

Russia does not have much to offer, only cheap energy resources and weapons. We can provide a better offer.

In 5-10 years, what Europe will we live in?

It depends on us and our decisions, as well as whether we will yield to the pressure we are put under. Europeans are not used to living under constant threat.

After World War II, Europe, not having war on its territory, became accustomed to the idea that economic issues are the most important and that there are no other threats.

Now, Europeans live in constant stress - economic inequality disappoints people, and the international situation causes fear. Suddenly, it turned out that Russia, which seemed like a normal country, is not. All this is a kind of foundation for anxiety, disappointment, protests, and anarchic behaviour, and all this means that we can be internally destabilised.

Europe has found itself in between two polarities. One - is inner anxiety and disappointment because of the inner and outer instability. Second - the desire to assemble and work together

Which path will prevail and what does it depend on, while Europe is still at a crossroads?

I think people will not want to go back to the past and live worse. Our world is shaped by values, but also by the way of life and certain habits we have - for example, moving freely, living a safe, prosperous life, being together and cooperating in situations of increased threat.

We are going through tough times, and they require the implementation of cooperation mechanisms within the EU and across the entire European continent.

A lot depends on the leaders here. I see hope in the fact that in democracies, there are not just one, three, or five heads, but many, many people who have good ideas. This is much more powerful than the principle of action in authoritarian systems, where everything is decided by the leader and his will.

We can count on many wise heads and many wise concepts. We are already doing this, all because the war in Ukraine has accelerated certain processes. We see significant internal changes in the European Union. NATO expansion is ongoing, the EU enlargement process has begun, the coordination of the EU's military industry has been strengthened, and a Commissioner for Defense has been appointed.

Ukraine is our catalyst for positive change. Europeans have always emerged from crises stronger.

Panels of experts discussed the technological innovations developed in Ukraine at the "Berkeley - Ukraine: Innovative Startup Hub"; conference at the University of California.

Technologies that will be useful during the war, as well as after it ends. No country has had a similar experience in building a special hub where scientists and entrepreneurs come together to create new technologies in a war-torn country. Thanks to the collaboration between the University of California, the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub (BBH), and scientists and economists from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), Ukraine has had this opportunity.

Anastasia Fedyk, one of the initiators of this project, Professor of Finance at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, Chief Economist of the AI for Good Foundation, and co-founder of the charitable foundation Economists for Ukraine, talked with Sestry about the prospects for an innovative hub to grow in Ukraine and what impact it will have on the development of science and modern technologies.

When Scientists and Businesspeople Collaborate

This initiative started last year when the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy signed a cooperation agreement with the University of California to carry out joint projects. At this year's meeting, other scientists and entrepreneurs from Ukraine joined the initiative, explains Anastasia Fedyk.

Mr. Serhiy Kvit, the NaUKMA President attended the meeting, as well as, Mr.Tymofiy Mylovanov, President of the Kyiv School of Economics. The University of California was represented by the newly appointed Chancellor Mr. Richard Lyons, Professor of Economics Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and myself. From the American side, Ms. Janet Napolitano, former President of the University of California, Berkeley, and now a member of the Advisory Board for Intelligence under the President of the USA, was also present.

There were founders of startups and operating businesses among the guests as well. For example, a British entrepreneur developing gliders (a type of hypersonic weapon) that can play a vital role in the war in Ukraine.

In Ukraine, we want more innovations like gliders to appear

Is this hub a place for collaboration among scientists from different countries? A scientific laboratory? A technological innovation center?

It's about the collaboration between scientists and businesses. It's no coincidence that our conference began with an introductory tour of the BBH, as this center operates on the principle of such cooperation. In our case, scientists develop a concept needed by businesses so it is easily commercialized, and thus, not only ready for implementation but practically immediately implemented. At BBH, this works as follows: a professor with a group of scientists develops a technology, which receives funding from a private company. It still is academic work, as they know how their technology will be used. It is not theoretical science (which without practical application does not have much impact), it is a readily available technology.

The ownership of intellectual property rights is clearly defined — what specifically belongs to the university and what to the company.

In BBH, this collaboration between business and science works like this. In Ukraine—given the circumstances—it might look a bit different, but there is a strong interest in creating an innovation center with this principle of operation. At BBH, the focus is on biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and neurotechnology.

In Ukraine the focus could be on the development of military or digital technologies.

Will the innovative hub in Ukraine only conduct scientific and business activities? Are there any other options for the development of science and technology?

At the conference, there was a panel where Mr.Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Mr.James Hodson, founder of the AI for Good Foundation, and I discussed what the activities of the Innovative Hub might look like. We also identified three levels of its operations.

The first is what we mentioned earlier: the collaboration between scientists and businesspeople to create and implement new technologies needed in the country. Such collaboration is possible in the center that will be set up in Kyiv, and perhaps later in Lviv and Kharkiv.

The second level is programs: courses, training, seminars, workshops, and events where people can meet. We practice this in Berkeley: meetings of scientists from different universities with business representatives.

The third direction is business-oriented activities. These are investments in Ukrainian startups aggregated in this hub. If, for example, American investors want to invest in demining (a relevant topic in Ukraine now), then developing new methods such as using robots is the way to go. In the future, this might become of interest to other countries as well.

Are foreign investors interested in Ukrainian startups?

We have ready solutions for this type of collaboration, that’s why we can act as managers of these processes. Our reputation encourages and attracts foreign investors to Ukraine. Some investors might want to invest in Ukrainian companies or ideas but don't know how to do it or where to start.

If we take a centralized approach and, for example, they invest in us as they do in Berkeley, taking into consideration our experience working with Ukraine, we can propose investments in the joint hub—this will be both convenient and interesting for them.

Can we already be certain that American investors are willing to operate in Ukraine?

Yes.

At our conference there was an investor who admitted he was interested in opening a fund and investing in Ukraine.

I would like to mention that hubs flourish due to cooperation between investment and business. That is also level three of the hub’s operations. How was it with BBH? They first opened the hub. They received grants and facilities. Currently, there are 35 partner companies (since these are neuro- and biotechnologies, these are mainly laboratories). And there is already investor interest in putting funds into these companies. They are indeed cherry-picked. They cooperate with scientists, and businesspeople want to invest in them.

In my opinion, this combination works best: having infrastructure, programs that help businesses grow and expand, and the ability to invest in this business—it is the definition of sustainable.

As for investors, we plan to involve the International Monetary Fund, USAID, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Center for Private Enterprise in this hub because their representatives expressed high interest in the entire initiative.

“We want to provide Ukraine with as many resources as possible”

Should the investments come mostly during or after the war?

Why should we wait for the war to end? Innovations are needed now. For example, what startups in the USA come up with in the field of mine clearance is not cutting edge anymore. Someone has already come up with something better in Mykolaiv.
Demining and drones are developing best in eastern Ukraine. I think that within a year, such a hub will appear in Kyiv.

You have been researching this for years. Are there enough scientists now to develop and implement such innovations? How severely has the war impacted this sector of science?

We are keen to support Ukrainian scientists. During the conference, we talked about the scholarships that Ukrainian researchers have received. The way I see it, inviting Ukrainian scientists to the USA for a year or more is not very effective. First, they fall out of their environment, and second, they often decide to stay here to work and live. Our goal is to help Ukrainian scientists develop in Ukraine and make scientific discoveries for Ukraine. We aim to provide your country with as many resources as possible. Various kinds.

Many scientists have left Ukraine: they found remote jobs or moved within the country, from Kharkiv to Kyiv or Lviv. But those who stayed are working very effectively. Compared to how the system usually works—in times of peace, when
everyone feels pretty comfortable and calm, and innovation might come at slower paces—now that need is quite dire. For example, the destruction of the energy system in Ukraine. It's not just a matter of rebuilding;—it can potentially lead to creating new, state-of-the-art, energy-saving, eco-friendly technologies.

There are such people in Ukraine—a select few for now, but they are effective and impressive in what they do

If Ukrainians want to win this war, they need to start doing things they have never done before...

We noticed this in the first months of the war when everyone was already working on something and had lots of ideas.

Isn’t it how the Economists for Ukraine Fund was created? You raised $1.6 million for various aid programs in Ukraine over the past two years.

Yes. My friends, my husband, and I couldn't just read the news about what was happening in Ukraine—we have relatives, acquaintances, and friends there, so we had to start this initiative, which is now growing. We are still finding new areas where we could do something more.

Your fund is involved in a wide variety of activities....

We couldn't choose just one type. We can help people in many different ways.
For example, the LifeForce platform, which brought together the efforts of many people with a wide spectrum of capabilities to meet real-time needs: food, shelter, medicine, and transportation. People fled from bombings, arrived in cities where they didn't know anyone, had never been before, and had to organize their lives and secure their basic needs. And someone living in that city knows where to rent a room or an apartment, find food for children, or even deliver medical equipment—and on our platform, these people met, exchanged necessary items, and helped each other.

Then financial donors appeared, who paid for the delivery of medicine to the elderly or disabled, single mothers, bought necessary items, and distributed them through a network of volunteers.
Let’s not forget about Svidok.org. This platform preserves the living memories of Ukrainians about the war. Anyone can go online and leave their story—anonymously or not. It is important to preserve these stories for the future, for historians, psychologists, and researchers who will work with the materials from this war. The stories of people from occupied territories are particularly moving. It is pain, horror, and at the same time, courage to talk about it.
This is a unique experience. For example, participants and survivors of WWII were mostly written after the war. But on Svidok.org, anyone can write in real time. Our feelings and memories change. Over time, they either become less intense, embellished, or entirely fade away. We want to preserve these impressions as they are now.

Photo: Tetiana Rudenko