USPS Community Gathering 2025

The conference was opened by Svitlana Matviienko, Executive Director of the Agency for Legislative Initiatives and Director of the Ukrainian School of Political Studies, together with Bohodar Kovaliv, a School alumnus.

The greatest value of the USPS has always been and remains, its people. Accordingly, it has become a tradition for the School’s alumni to take the floor. This year, the central themes of the speeches were the virtues that shape the Ukrainian nation: unity, honour and dignity.

Speaking about unity in defence of Ukrainian statehood was Alina Koval, a service member of the 13th Operational Brigade of the 2nd Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine Khartiia, founder of the Kalyna Foundation volunteer centre and a member of the Khmelnytskyi Regional Council. She is a USPS 2012 alumna.

‘Unity saved us — that is a fact. We are a nation that gave its answer: to be — coming together in an unprecedented way at the outset of the invasion […] Our horizontal networks became lifelines, and our cohesion gave rise to a powerful volunteer movement that astonished the world’.

In the full-scale war, unity has taken on a new, supra-territorial meaning. Perhaps the most vivid testimony to this is the Ukrainian flag, which now flies across the world.

However, there are also forces capable of undermining this unity. In the fourth year of a gruelling full-scale war, the cracks have become strikingly visible. ‘Extreme exhaustion in the armed forces and a shortage of personnel in units have already led to critical fractures within Ukrainian society. When a civilian attacks a servicemember deep in the rear, or when the consequences of corruption scandals extend beyond economic losses and the erosion of democratic processes to produce total distrust and social disillusionment’, Alina Koval emphasised. At the same time, she remains convinced that Ukraine will endure, because ‘the roots of the nation are alive’.

A community preserves only those virtues that it tirelessly cultivates. Honour is one of them. The Ukrainian nation has consciously chosen this guiding principle and follows it every day. At the conference, Andrii Pysarenko — a lawyer, commander of a mortar battery of the Da Vinci Wolves Battalion, and a USPS 2023 alumnus — spoke about honour in the experience of the great war.

Andrii Pysarenko emphasised that Ukraine today stands precisely because of such people — people of honour. In his view, every Ukrainian, regardless of their role, carries a share of this inner core.

‘There are many states in the world, but not every state is a nation. A nation is created not by a population, but by values. And among our greatest values are freedom, dignity, justice and honour’.

Ukrainian service members now stand at the forefront of defending democratic values. It is therefore both symbolic and deliberate that the meeting took place on the Day of the Armed Forces of Ukraine — a moment for participants to honour the extraordinary efforts of the past and the present. The USPS considers comprehensive support for the Armed Forces of Ukraine to be its duty. In 2025, the School’s total contributions in support of Ukraine’s Defence Forces amounted to UAH 9 million.

This year, registration fees paid by participants of the 2025 cohort exceeded UAH 700,000. USPS allocated additional resources and transferred a total of UAH 3 million to the Come Back Alive Charitable Foundation. In addition, the School supported an initiative by Andrii Pysarenko by contributing UAH 3 million to the Hurkit Foundation for the purchase of armoured vehicles. The same amount — UAH 3 million — was donated by USPS to the SVOI Charitable Foundation to support the rehabilitation of wounded service members, led by Lesia Lytvynova, an alumna of the You Matter programme.

Being worthy of the daily sacrifice also means supporting the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This is what helps us endure. Dignity is one of the pillars on which Ukrainians stand. This virtue teaches us our own worth and how not to lose ourselves — how to remain human. This was the focus of the address by Rehina Kharchenko, Acting Mayor of Zaporizhzhia and a 2025 USPS alumna.

‘Dignity is not about lofty words, but about real people. It is about the women of Zaporizhzhia who, after a russian strike, found themselves trapped beneath the rubble of a medical centre [following the missile attack on Zaporizhzhia on 10 December 2024]. They spent seven hours in darkness, under concrete slabs, surrounded by dust, when every second could have been their last. They themselves called the emergency line “101”. They did not scream, did not break, did not lose hope. Instead, they told rescuers that there were wounded people nearby and asked them to save others first’.

Rehina Kharchenko noted that life offers no instructions on how to preserve one’s dignity amid chaos. However, each of us can derive our own formula, as, in the speaker’s words, ‘dignity is not measured by merits. It is defined by an inner belief in human worth — one’s own and that of others. Even in the darkest times’.

In the darkest moments, amid the turmoil of war, when words often seem insufficient and emotions run high, music comes to the fore. Through Ukrainian Christmas carols performed by Marta Kuzii — a music and civic activist, classical pianist, cultural diplomat and USPS alumna of 2024 — those present were able to immerse themselves in an atmosphere of festivity, comfort and warmth.

The Annual Gathering of the USPS Community concluded with the presentation of diplomas to the Class of 2025. On that day, the programme participants officially completed their studies.

At the same time, the School announced the launch of a new intake — the jubilee 20th cohort.