What Is the State Woven From? Highlights from the First Session of the 20th USPS Programme

The First Session is always an attempt to see the whole picture: who holds the state together and how, and how its different elements — institutions, politicians, people and ideas — are connected. This is especially true during the full-scale war, when each of these parts is stretched to its limit. Just as importantly, it is an attempt to find the language for a shared conversation about all this.

So here is how those four days unfolded and which questions became the starting point for the 20th group.

There were many conversations about justice during the Session, in its many different dimensions. The conversation with Supreme Court judge Ivan Mishchenko began with a basic question: does the judicial system meet society’s expectations? Does it have authority? Is it proactive enough in its own development? And what is its purpose — truth or justice?

Reforming any system requires an impulse first and foremost from within. Ukraine’s judicial architecture still has work to do: it needs to build its own agency, proactivity and vision.

The same topic, but at the international level, was continued in a conversation with Anton Korynevych, Director of the Directorate General for International Law and Legal Counteraction to Aggression at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

The crime of aggression is the ‘accumulated evil of the whole war’, as the Nuremberg Tribunal defined it, because it is the root cause of all other crimes. The problem is that today there is no effective mechanism that would make it possible to hold Russia’s leadership accountable specifically for this crime.

The International Criminal Court is limited because russia has not ratified the Rome Statute. The UN Security Council is limited because of the veto power. This is why Ukraine is working to establish a Special Tribunal under the auspices of the Council of Europe. In July 2025, the agreement on its establishment was ratified. This is a long process. But without it, the question of justice remains open.

Another dimension of justice is the fight against corruption. The NABU and the SAPO were created as a response to public demand and as part of the European integration process. Yet today they operate under constant pressure while also facing persistent public misunderstanding.

As Semen Kryvonos, Director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, explains, one of the problems is the gap between expectations and actual powers. When suspects are released on bail or leave the country, this is perceived as a failure. In reality, however, it is a matter for the court and procedural rules, not the anti-corruption bodies.

The same applies to plea agreements. They are an effective tool that makes it possible to recover funds and uncover schemes. Yet because of weak communication, they often cause distrust.

Fighting corruption requires allies. The events of summer 2025 showed that such allies exist. At the same time, they also made one thing clear: without constant communication with society, even an effective institution remains vulnerable.

The full-scale war has changed not only the priorities of state policy but also the very logic of decision-making. The Government works under constant shortages of time and resources and with no room for error. There is only a constant search for balance: between social justice and budgetary capacity, between loud statements and the need to make unpopular decisions. Every decision is directly connected to ensuring the resilience of the state at war. Energy, the economy, business support and migration are all considered through the prism of security, commitments to international partners and the functioning of the state under constant pressure.

The group spoke openly about this at a meeting with Prime Minister of Ukraine Yuliia Svyrydenko. One of the main topics was, of course, preparing the energy sector for winter. The Government is taking into account the experience of last winter and the understanding that the enemy will not stop attacking critical infrastructure. This is why the focus is on physical protection, the development of decentralised generation to reduce communities’ dependence on large power hubs and ensuring uninterrupted heat and water supply. The priorities are the left bank of the capital, frontline areas and large cities.

A significant part of the Government’s decisions today is made not in the political but in the macro-financial dimension. It is important to provide urgent support to people, fulfil international commitments and ensure the resilience of the state. This is not only about individual draft laws, such as Science City or the new Labour Code, but about the overall logic of state policy and programmes in wartime.

Against this background, the conversation with demographer Ella Libanova was especially difficult and painful.

A country cannot exist without people. Yet this is the resource Ukraine is losing most rapidly. The demographic cost of the war is about 10 million people. This includes not only direct losses but also migration, declining birth rates and excess mortality. Problems that remained unresolved for years — migration, support for vulnerable groups and infant mortality — have now become more acute.

The return of Ukrainians matters. But, according to Libanova, the state should not create preferential treatment for those who left, as this risks deepening internal divisions.

Instead, systemic policy is needed: the quality of education, healthcare, occupational safety and the development of preschool education. Without policies aimed at preserving our people, all other policies lose their meaning.

What worked well and what did not in implementing healthcare reform? How does the healthcare system function during the full-scale war? The new group asked these questions of Pavlo Kovtoniuk, one of the architects of the reform, co-founder of the Ukrainian Healthcare Center and a USPS 2021 alumnus.

After the Revolution of Dignity, a team of people from outside the system entered the Ministry of Health. The team set itself the main task of breaking the feudal model in which a hospital existed not to treat patients but to extract rent from them. On paper, everything was free, but in reality people still had to pay for their treatment.

The reformers left the system in 2019. But, surprisingly, the new authorities did not stop the reform and instead continued to develop it. In 2021, the reform entered a new stage. Then came the full-scale invasion. It turned out that the healthcare system was much more ready for it than it had seemed. It took on an enormous burden of treatment and rehabilitation. Young doctors who had already formed within the new system think very differently.

This is the reform’s greatest achievement. It means that something truly took root in the system and did not rest only on the enthusiasm of specific people. When change lives on without its authors, this is the sign that it is real.

The Verkhovna Rada of the 9th convocation has been working for almost seven years, more than half of that time during the war. It faces several tasks at once: ensuring the functioning of the state, moving towards the EU, implementing reforms and preserving democratic procedures. This convocation has faced extremely difficult political and security challenges and tasks: maintaining full parliamentary work during wartime, protecting Ukraine’s geopolitical interests, preserving the economy and attracting international support. At the same time, it has had to intensify Ukraine’s European and Euro-Atlantic integration and the implementation of reforms along this path. The group discussed Parliament’s current work with First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Oleksandr Korniienko.

The group discussed one of Parliament’s most important areas of work, European integration, with Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine Taras Kachka.

European integration is multi-layered. It is not only about harmonising legislation, standards and rules. This interoperability touches architecture, book publishing and, ultimately, wind turbines and their impact on the lives of bats. Politically, we believe that the EU is the most mature group of states, capable of planning for the future, even though debates about what the Union should be internally continue.

The world has changed irreversibly, and we have to adapt to its turbulence. This is the view of Yuliia Mostova, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the online media outlet ZN.UA. Digitalisation and data leaks, information wars, the dominance of fast content and propaganda designed to affect emotions are all part of this new reality.

Ms Mostova is convinced that the EU, the United States and international organisations missed every moment when they should have been reforming. Trump is not the cause of imbalance but the consequence of a political system that has long ceased to work. In a world where irresponsible leaders of the most powerful states have a place, we Ukrainians, when the war ends, will have to rely only on ourselves and on our human potential.

The greatest threat to democracy is people who are unable to think critically and make political decisions superficially and emotionally. In times of turbulence, we need entirely new unconventional solutions, fresh perspectives and the ability to see the essence behind piles of information noise more than ever. This is also a question of quality education at all levels. The problem is not the government but the material it is sewn from. Changing the government is much easier than changing what is in people’s heads.

When we talk about how digitalisation has changed us, cyberspace today is an invisible but very important dimension of the state. Today, on average, there are about 10 connected devices per person, and each of them is a potential vulnerability.

Ukraine is one of the most attacked countries in the world. The number of attacks on critical infrastructure has increased tenfold in recent years. Attacks have become more complex: malicious actors can remain inside systems for months, waiting for the right moment.

The challenges ahead will only grow: artificial intelligence and quantum technologies are next. The question is how ready we are for cyber threats in a world where a company or organisation is protected only as well as each of its employees is protected.

The group discussed cybersecurity with Yehor Aushev, CEO and co-founder of Cyber Unit Technologies and a USPS 2016 alumnus, and with Roman Lanskyi, co-founder of Strimco Ukraine.

The conversation with Mykola Bielieskov captured a shift in global logic. The idea that economic liberalisation automatically leads to democracy has not proved true.

Authoritarian states have adapted, and war has remained an instrument of policy. The balance of power is changing. The G7’s share of global GDP is falling. The United States is losing its monopoly in the military sphere. Europe is forced to take on more responsibility. In this reality, Ukraine is one of the key drivers of change.

The final conversation of the Session, with Anton Drobovych, Head of the Centre for Human Rights and War Memorialisation at the Kyiv School of Economics, brought participants back to the question with which everything began: what is the state?

‘Someone acting in the interests of many’ is perhaps the simplest definition of politics. But it is possible only where responsibility exists: when you may be asked about any action and must be ready to answer.

This conversation became the conclusion of the First Session, because everything discussed over those four days — courts, government, anti-corruption bodies, healthcare, the economy and security — ultimately comes down to how society understands itself and its responsibility.

And, ultimately, to the answer to a simple question: what exactly are we building, and what holds it together?