Reflections from Kyiv

Hello,

I just returned from a trip to Ukraine, and in this video I share some of my observations and reflections. The topics include the mood in the city, the view on the war, corruption, and the need to support Ukraine's civil society and democratic institutions after the shutdown of USAID.

Watch the video here or read a transcript below.

Best,
Anders

Transcript:

Hello, I am back from my trip to Ukraine. I'm back in Copenhagen and I thought I would in this video take the opportunity to share some of my observations. I know many people who watch these videos actually live in Ukraine or maybe even live in Kyiv and these observations might not be super surprising to you. Or you can maybe add in the comments other nuances that I don't include.

But I think many people also still have a very vague idea about what it's actually like in Ukraine today. What's it like to be there? What's the city like? What's it like to be in a country at war? So I thought I would use this opportunity to just share some of those things and some of the things I got out of the conversations while I was there.

And the first thing I want to address is the question of what's it like to be in a capital, in a country at war? And you know when you get to Kyiv the most striking thing is the normality. So I think that's a perspective that is often not understood thoroughly in the Western countries that actually life in Kyiv is for most people sort of normal. You will see people going to work, people bringing their kids to school, people doing the groceries, there are traffic jams, you have policemen giving out speeding tickets and all these things you have in any major city. All these things are still going on in Kyiv today.

And when you go around the city you don't have the feeling that this is a city in a country that is under a lot of pressure in a war. The moment you get to actually talk with people, when you get beneath the surface, then clearly you can feel these things. It becomes very clear that everyone is influenced and touched by the war. Everyone knows someone who is fighting on the front lines. Most people know people that have lost their lives in the war.

So people are influenced by this. But still it is a city that is functioning more or less normally. You will have the daily air raid alerts and usually people don't really react to them. There is a siren and nobody really seems to take much notice. And then of course there is the curfew. You have to be home by midnight and then you can't go out again before five o'clock. Those kinds of rules are there but overall it is a very normal city to be in. Great restaurants, just lovely city, very beautiful. So if it weren't actually a war there, I would definitely recommend it as a holiday destination.

But what I will also say is that the interesting thing about it is that this is not the capital of a country that is about to collapse. So I think it is very important to have this perspective when we have these discussions also in the West about "Ukraine doesn't have the cards" and all that. Well actually… it is a very difficult situation for Ukraine right now. But this is not a desperate situation. It is not a situation where there are no alternatives and people are just desperate for this to end at the moment.

Actually, I will say the striking thing when you talk with people in Ukraine is still the patriotism and it's the determination. Depending on who you talk with, you will get different ideas about how problematic the situation is. And I would say especially when I talk with journalists who regularly travel to the front lines, talk with people out there actually doing the fighting, they will typically have a very pessimistic view on how things are going. But then I also talk with people in the think tank environment, in the more strategic parts of the defense, in the defense procurement, in some of the businesses that work with production of different equipment. And there generally I will say that they had a much more optimistic idea about what the war is like and how it was going.

And one of the striking things that I really sensed was that people are thinking long term here. People are working on projects that won't materialize for the next year or two years but they still see this as valuable for winning the war because those are the kinds of time frames that they understand the war in. There is no feeling that this is about to end anytime soon and there is definitely in general a strong determination to keep on fighting for as long as it takes until victory.

Corruption, I wrote here on my little paper here. One of the things that many people talked about was the problem of corruption and it's clear that there is a strong awareness in Ukraine about the corrupt traditions in Ukrainian society and some of those problems and also what it means for their ability to use resources effectively but also to gain the trust of outside investors.

But I will also say that when I talk with people in Ukraine it's clear that Ukraine is in a very different place now than just 10 or 15 years ago. Back then corruption was something you as a citizen in Ukraine would feel on a daily basis. You would have to pay for all kinds of daily services if you wanted to get your kid into kindergarten or whatever you wanted. If you needed a new passport or a driver's license, you would have to pay something to the bureaucrat actually doing that. That is not what it's like today. Today corruption is hidden away, it is something that ordinary Ukrainians don't feel on a daily basis and it is something they learn about through media stories. I think that in itself shows that Ukraine has actually moved quite a bit on the corruption issue because it's something that is not accepted as a daily part of life anymore.

And it's also clear that so many steps have been taken to beat corruption that this in itself actually to some extent has become a problem. Many people I talked with actually mentioned that the biggest problem for their business today was not really corruption, they didn't run into those kinds of issues, but what they did experience a lot was actually all the bureaucracy intended to combat corruption, and that this would create obstacles for doing the work because there are so many checks and balances on whatever they wanted to do. So that's I think an interesting perspective on that. But clearly it's something that the Ukrainians are aware of that they need to continue during this time of war, this very very intense battle with corruption, because they need to get beyond that to keep the trust of their allies and also to ensure a positive future for themselves in hopefully the European Union.

Finally, last thing on my list is USAID. I was not really aware of this before getting to Ukraine but the effects of the American administration shutting down USAID have been massive. It's all kinds of humanitarian things and it's also things that are important for Ukraine's future as a healthy democracy. So it's very much things like support to independent media for example, and these people I talked with were very concerned that the lack of funding now as a result of USAID not working anymore would endanger Ukraine's aspirations to be a strong and healthy democracy in the future. Because it basically means that many of those media outlets that are so important for keeping power in check are now weakened, and many of them have to close because there is this lack of money. But it's basically everywhere. So many places you go and you see the USAID signs hanging around still in Ukraine. And it's just something I think is very important that we are aware of here, that when we're talking about Europe replacing the United States as a strong security partner for Ukraine and giving the military aid and equipping Ukraine to fight the war, that it's also very important to keep funding for these other things. As the people I talked with there said, it's important that we understand that Ukraine is not just a military frontline right now, but Ukraine is actually also the frontline of democracy and fighting the war for democracy against authoritarianism. And it's important that we take good care of Ukraine's democracy in this situation.

So it's also a perspective that I think maybe is not covered enough, but there is a need to make sure that Ukraine also on the other side of this awful war is a well functioning democracy and has a healthy system with independent media and politicians being held accountable for their decisions.

Alright those were the points I decided to touch on today and were some of my takeaways from this trip to Ukraine. It was just overall a very good experience to visit this country and I definitely hope it won't be that long before I will get the chance to do it again. But alright thanks for watching and I will see you again next time.