Timothy Snyder is an American historian and co-head of the Documenting Ukraine project at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna.
For centuries, Ukrainians have fought against various prohibitions, and now they give their lives to protect themselves from enslavement. For people who are kept in torture camps, residents of cities and villages who found themselves under occupation, freedom is not an idea, but something perceivable. However, in general, in post-authoritarian societies, people most often talk about ‘freedom from’, and discussions revolve around the choice between freedom and security. But why are these things mutually exclusive and not mutually dependent? Ukraine’s protection of its borders proves that only a safe territory can be a space of freedom. Ukrainian society also shows the practical effectiveness of freedom. Can such an interpretation of it be unifying for the modern world?