At Ukraine Crisis Media Center, the National Platform for Resilience and Social Cohesion, within the framework of the project “Sustaining the Resilience of Ukraine towards the Emerging Risks and Consequences of the War,” held a public discussion dedicated to the third anniversary of the full-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war. During two discussion panels, experts discussed the main outcomes of the process and identified key challenges for the new stage of the struggle for Ukraine’s sovereignty.
At the beginning of the event, Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies, shared his thoughts on the international contours of understanding the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“The issue to which we must constantly return is the Budapest Memorandum and other agreements. We must keep emphasizing that this war and the fate of Ukraine is not only a war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine. I very often hear that there is a struggle between autocracy and democracy and that it is a war for freedom or not freedom, but no – first of all, we are talking about territorial integrity, state sovereignty and the system of international order established after World War II,” he said.
Andreas Umland called the current stage of the Russian-Ukrainian war an entry point where the international interests of other countries have their place.
“Look at what is happening now. It is not only the Russian Federation that is violating the regime. We also have North Korea, a country that has nuclear weapons. We have the United States, which actually supports the Russian Federation, though it is prohibited by the Budapest Memorandum. In other words, if it happened to Ukraine, it may happen to other countries. For me, these are the central aspects that we have to highlight in any communication,” emphasized the analyst of the Stockholm Center for Eastern European Studies.
Dmitri Teperik, international expert on security and stability, Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine (PFRU), noted that Ukraine reminded that freedom is not something that is freely given. It is something to be fought for. In his speech, he focused on the aspects that the war has changed.
“In the last three years, the feeling of war has transformed from something hypothetical to something highly probable. The Baltic States are likely to experience Russian aggression on their territory, but we are optimistic because Ukraine has shown that war can develop differently. So there is no fear of the Russian Federation that we had before. There is evidence that together we can win such a war and the Russian Federation is really weak,” the expert emphasized.
Dmitri Teperik believes that the war has also transformed the concept of resilience. Previously, many experts said that it was a focus on the crisis, but during the war, resilience is already seen as a struggle for survival.
The war in Ukraine has shown international solidarity. The set of countries that supported Ukraine and joined this confrontation with authoritarianism is in fact Eurasian.
Therefore, the subjectivity of Europe is the launch of the Eurasian Security Conference and an attempt to horizontally solidify countries regardless of the US position. This view was expressed by the co-founder of the National Platform for Resilience and Social Cohesion Volodymyr Lupatsiy.
He believes that Ukraine and Europe have not overcome one key point. A lot has been said about restoring Europe’s geopolitical subjectivity, but this thesis has not been conceptualized or given any political dimension.
“In my view, America does not consider Europe an equal partner because it has not been able to go beyond the Eurocentric approach,” added the co-founder of the National Platform for Resilience and Social Cohesion.
His colleague, co-founder of the National Platform for Resilience and Social Cohesion, Yulia Tyshchenko, said that Ukraine is now playing the role of a factor that can unite the European Union.
Viktor Shlinchak, founder and chairman of the Board of the Institute of World Policy, believes that Europe’s task now is not just to save Ukraine, but also to help it survive. After the Munich Conference, he finally heard the motto that Ukraine had been talking about earlier. That it is Europe and now only it is becoming a shield for the continent, so that its countries do not fall victims of predators who are ready to tear Europe apart, divide it, weaken it through right-wing governments and various special information operations.
The expert also noted that the current situation gives every reason to discuss new models of collective security in Europe, and Ukraine can play an important role in this.
“Sooner or later, Europe will face the fact that Trump’s words about withdrawing from NATO may become not just words, but reality, and then this great Alliance will lose its prospects for expansion and we will not know where we are going. Now Ukraine may even initiate a defense alliance around itself, in particular with the Baltic states, Poland, the United Kingdom, and possibly France,” Shlinchak noted.