How Did the Second USPS Session Go?

The Second Session began with this question. At first glance, it may seem strange, as the participants already knew one another. Yet being acquainted with someone is not the same as truly knowing them. Through its programme, the School seeks to create an environment and horizontal connections that will enable participants to develop projects together in the future. Through a workshop based on acting and performance practices, participants explored what they had in common as a group and gained a deeper understanding of one another’s motivations. The workshop was facilitated by Yaroslava Kravchenko, Director of Wild Theatre and a 2024 USPS alumna.

On the second and third days, the participants were divided into two groups, ‘Lyceum’ and ‘Academy’. This gave each group more time to ask the speaker questions and discuss the topic.

One group worked with Mykhailo Koltsov, a World Bank analyst, a PhD in Philosophy and a regular lecturer at the School. The group examined voting methods, including the Borda count and the Condorcet method. As it turns out, the method we choose can determine the final outcome.

The group also worked with a framework developed by Albert Hirschman, an American economist who helped lay the foundations for the reconstruction of post-war Europe. Hirschman proposed the fundamental concept of ‘exit and voice’, the two principal mechanisms through which members of a social structure respond to a decline in its performance or effectiveness. For example, if someone is dissatisfied with a company’s service, they can either complain, thereby exercising ‘voice’, or stop using the company’s services, thereby choosing ‘exit’.

‘Exit’ and ‘voice’ underpin the existence of social structures of every scale. If these mechanisms are blocked, the ‘organism’ inevitably faces decline and disintegration.

At the same time, the second group attended a seminar with Pavlo Klimkin, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary and Ukraine’s Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2014 to 2019. The seminar examined the contemporary world order, how it has changed and who shapes it. Together with Pavlo Klimkin, the group traced how the world’s modus vivendi evolved between 1973 and 2014.

Today, the participants concluded, the balance of power is measured not by territory but by technology. Artificial intelligence has become a central issue in relations between the United States and China. Europe, meanwhile, continues to live by the logic of ‘never again’, with pacifism as a way of life. Somewhere between these poles stands Putin, fearful that future textbooks will remember him as the man who lost an empire.

Does being human mean waging war? If we look at the history of humanity, the answer appears to be yes. People have fought wars continuously for thousands of years. Yet every war eventually ends, while the consequences of the moral choices made during it remain. What enables a person to remain humane during war? To explore this question, the participants turned to the classic text of the ‘Iliad’.

Patroclus is Achilles’ comrade-in-arms, the person who reminds Achilles who he is and embodies his humanity. While Patroclus is alive, Achilles seeks to capture his opponent rather than destroy him. When Patroclus dies, the rage with which the ‘Iliad’ itself begins transforms the hero into a different being. He becomes a ‘mad dog’ who desecrates Hector’s body, thereby committing a war crime.

This story raises a question: is our humanity sustained by human relationships or by an inner moral compass? Why does a nuclear strike remain the threshold that civilisation fears crossing, while carpet bombing, local atrocities and the ‘ordinary’ violence of war have somehow been accommodated within acceptable boundaries?

The group explored these questions with Ivan Homza, who holds a PhD in Political Science and is a professor at the Faculty of Master’s Studies in Social Sciences and Humanities at the Kyiv School of Economics, as well as a regular lecturer at the School.

People who embark on a career in public policy are often unprepared for it, particularly physically. In trying to keep pace with our ambitions, we forget the fragility of human life, neglect self-care and become disconnected from our bodies. We fail to recognise that our body is the only thing that truly belongs to us and over which we can exercise control.

How closely are the body and politics connected? In fact, in many ways. Voters often choose a candidate without reading their electoral programme, focusing solely on their appearance. Does the candidate look healthy or unwell? Well-groomed or not? How physically imposing do they appear? All these details subconsciously influence people’s choices.

The group discussed the body in politics with Svitlana Matviienko, Director of the School and Executive Director of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives.

 If you see someone who needs help, will you take responsibility for saving their life? Will you have the skills needed to help them? And what if you are the one who needs help?

Military medicine has substantially shaped modern first-aid standards and continues to do so. In civilian life, however, helping to save another person’s life has yet to become an established practice. In a crisis, we are more likely to wait for an ambulance than to try to save someone ourselves by following proven, effective protocols.

The introduction of life-saving practices is fraught with organisational, philosophical, legal and statistical paradoxes. The group discussed these issues with Fedir Serdiuk, co-founder of the PULSE Charitable Foundation and a 2024 USPS alumnus.

After the discussion, participants practised techniques for stopping life-threatening bleeding with FAST instructors.

The earliest religious practices emerged on different continents as long as 18,000 years ago. This was not because people needed metaphysics, but because religion organises communities. An organised community is an effective one. You cannot bring down a mammoth alone, but together it is entirely possible.

Religious leaders helped lay the foundations of the modern Ukrainian state: Greek Catholic priests shared Soviet prison cells with fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). This shared experience strengthened the belief that the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian church could not exist without one another and that ‘we’ and ‘I’ are inseparable in this context.

What kind of community, then, are we building right now, while the war continues? If a Ukrainian churchgoer had only one prayer, it would be for the soldiers first and only then for themselves. Who or what now serves as the ‘common hearth’ that holds us together? And are we, as a society, ready to respond to a religious need that will only continue to grow? The participants discussed these questions with Andrii Andrushkiv, a senior lieutenant in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a theologian and a 2016 USPS alumnus.

The Second Session concluded with a discussion on why history matters for understanding Russia’s war against Ukraine. The group spoke with Volodymyr Viatrovych, who holds a PhD in History and is a Member of Parliament of Ukraine of the ninth convocation.

In the Kremlin’s hands, history is a three-pronged weapon. It mobilises Russian society through myths about Kyivan Rus, Novorossiya and the Great Patriotic War. It divides Ukrainians by offering a ‘politics of amnesia’ in place of memory. It also discredits Ukraine internationally by portraying Ukrainians as collaborators and xenophobes.

Yet there is another history that the Kremlin underestimated: the history of Ukrainian resistance, born in the most adverse circumstances. It encompasses the insurgent movements of the twentieth century, the Maidans and horizontal self-organisation, which became the very ‘X factor’ that kept the country standing in the first days of 2022. This war is not only about territory. It is a war for identity and for the very right to exist as a nation. It is no coincidence that Ukrainian legislation has defined it as the ‘war for Ukraine’s independence’, placing today’s resistance within a struggle spanning more than a century.

Although the Session has ended, we still have much to reflect on. We thank all our participants and speakers for making five days fly by amid this whirlwind of discussions. We are particularly pleased that three of this Session’s speakers are our alumni. Our community strengthens its members, which is precisely the purpose of everything we do.