Executions, torture of prisoners, forcible removal of children, obstruction of evacuation, shelling of civilians, hospitals, and infrastructure… During the 15 months of the war, the army of the Russian Federation committed almost all types of crimes mentioned in the Geneva Conventions. The General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine has opened more than 80,000 proceedings related to war crimes. Ukraine demands the creation of a special tribunal for the crime of aggression, which it calls ‘the mother of all crimes’. But what crime is Russia actually committing? What exactly is it trying to destroy, persecuting volunteers, representatives of local self-government, and everyone who does not agree to the occupation? The purpose of this conversation is not to establish the legal qualification of crimes that are prescribed in international conventions but to understand the nature of the great war of the 21st century.

Ukrainians who went abroad feel guilty that they are outside the country. Those who are far from the war zone think about those who are closer to the frontline. Those who do not serve may feel guilty before those who are in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. But also those who serve may feel guilty before their fellow soldiers on the frontline. The latter, in their turn, may feel guilty before those who have already given their lives. To overcome this cycle of guilt, in the fifteenth month of the war of attrition, we ask the question: do we have the right to slow down? To take a breath?
Pre-war sociological studies showed that many Ukrainians feel that they have no influence on anything. But the mentioned feeling of guilt can be interpreted as a feeling of subjectivity. You can feel guilty only when you think that you can do something. How can we use this resource? Can we organize the vocabulary of our new experiences?

Our conversation is based on the key Russian paradox: “Ukraine does not exist, but it must be destroyed”. Russia bombards Ukrainian cities, creates filtration camps, destroys schools, museums, churches, synagogues, and mosques, and persecutes the Crimean Tatar people. Millions of people of totally different origins consider it necessary to resist together in any available way, to protect their home, Ukraine. But what is Ukraine today? What does its complex, multicultural society look like, and what exactly is the strength of its resistance?

It is inherent in Ukrainians not to trust the authorities because the state has been hostile to its citizens for centuries. Society is used to relying not on institutions, but on individual heroes. And that’s OK. But after February 24, 2022, Ukrainians realized that in conditions of full-scale aggression, only the army can oppose the army, it is impossible to save the victims solely by volunteer efforts, and to have water and electricity, you nedd infrastructure. For the first time, Ukrainians felt that their state could serve them. Meanwhile, the business helps both the government and the civil society. Have we moved to the stage where the state can rely on its citizens, and they can rely on it? Those who were volunteers and activists at different times, but were in power during the great war, are invited to this conversation. What is the difference between these roles, and what is the best interaction?

The international security system is showing its inability to save the lives of people who are being killed by crazy dictators. Meanwhile, many Ukrainians believe that by defending their country, they are defending civilization as such. While debates about geopolitics operate with the concept of negative solidarity (‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’), the values that are talked about so much in speeches and lectures are going through the reality check on the Ukrainian frontline. Is the world able to restore the original meaning to the principles and ideals that we consider fundamental to the survival of humanity?

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?

By fighting against Ukraine, Russia is also trying to prove that democracies are weaker than authoritarian systems and that the world should be dominated by the rule of force. But isn’t the army of a democratic country and a democratic society stronger? An army consisting of citizens who consciously chose to defend their country. After all, what is an ‘army of a democratic country’? And what does democracy mean in the army? The participants of this conversation are Ukrainian servicemen and servicewomen. When we hear the opinion that today “Ukraine is protecting democracy in the world”, what do they say about it? What is the real price of it? How do they see Ukrainian democracy during and after the war?