the time of the revolution of dignity and the second anniversary of the full-scale invasion, it is such a time to draw certain conclusions, to understand , to speak, to reveal something that we could not stop at, but being at such a frantic pace, and today i will try to do it with my guest: yevhen hlibovytskyi , a member of the nestor group, director of the newly created frontier institute, my guest, yevgeny, congratulations, good day, thank you for agreeing to come and talk, i know that quite recently the ukraine 2024 forum took place, dimensions of sustainability, actually the frontier institute with partners organized this event, and it was really an event that had such publicity, more than 100 leaders of opinions, environments tried to find the question of where we are now, in what state, where are the limits of our sustainability and so on. let's start with... how do you feel about the times and mood

of today's society? i think that he is probably alarming, and if at the beginning of a full-scale invasion, the ukrainians very clearly handed over the mandate to the state, and with the recognition of all the imperfection of the state. they said: okay, we fully support what he is doing the state and are ready to fit into any management decisions that exist, then already in the 23rd year we see a rollback from this position, in the 24th year, i think we see an even bigger rollback. probably, it can be seen most easily through indicators of institutional trust, which are constantly carried out by sociologists instead of measures of institutional trust. companies, we see

how trust just reached unprecedented highs in 2022 and started to slip again in 23rd-24th, and institutional trust is very different from, for example, popularity, because it actually defines the level of influence of this or that state institution, and it determines with what force... with what level of authority this institution can appeal to society, and actually ukrainians mostly took away institutional trust from the state, because they were wary of the toxic influence of the state on their lives, because , that independent ukraine did not emerge as a result of the victory of the national liberation movement, but as a result of this unique compromise that took place in 1991 between the democrats and the communists. in fact, everything was inherited

the soviet system of state institutions along with all the legacy, including the legacy of the extermination of millions of ukrainians, and ukrainians have been wary of state institutions from that time to the present day, they actually learned by taking away trust to weaken the state and thus actually knock out the teeth of those institutions that they were most wary and... and then feel relatively safe. the 22nd year is a return of trust. 23-24 years, society saw that the advance of trust did not lead to a fundamental change in quality governance, that is , there was no more responsibility, no more accountability, and no less corruption, and so on. that is, as a result. what

society began to do, it began to weaken the state little by little from the middle, by taking away this trust, this process is on the one hand logical, on the other hand very dangerous, because it is dangerous, because we are in the process of war, and excessive weakening of the state is not will increase its protection of the citizen, on the contrary, it can lead to the collapse of state institutions, and as a result... we are now in such a very precarious situation, a very unpleasant situation , we don't know for sure how society is, where there are limits beyond which you can't stand up, we don't understand what these levels of trust are expressed, for example, in some digital indicators, there, for example, 12 or 15 or 22, but we understand very clearly that the current trend demands from all subjects, from the authorities, from the opposition, from a significant part. entities that

serve them, for example, there is the media and so on, and so on, a fundamental change in behavior and actions that are not based on an empty declaration, on actions for recovery. trust me i understand very well what feeling you are talking about regarding trust in the government and state institutions in the 22nd year, this is when for the first time , perhaps in the entire history of our lives, we felt that the state is not a stranger, that it is, that it is ours, that she defends, that we can do something together, yes, and we all began to trust the state and invest our efforts, the resignation of zaluzhny, which took place a few days ago, was also about the credit of trust , that's zaluzhny, that's trust, that's his own , this is a representative of the authorities, a representative of the state, who

is ours, and here is this person in society, who trusted by many people, regardless of whether he was really effective or not, but he had tremendous trust. and this person is taken away, what are the consequences, how dramatic can the consequences be? i think that at this point it is too early to talk about what exactly the consequences will be, because there is also a certain amount of trust in general syrsky and in those who will now be in management positions, i think that a very high level of trust in... of commander-in-chief zaluzhny was to a large extent caused by the fact that he is for ukrainian society looked like someone who feels the pain of ukrainian society, and this empathy is probably a very important

component of building trust. we have a very traumatized society, one who empathizes, one who demonstrates their empathy, one who demonstrates, if you will, respect for pain. he will gain additional credibility , and accordingly, this demonstration was, on the part of zaluzhny, ah, it was very different inside the armed forces, we now see how very different stories are leaking from that million ukrainians who are now in the army, uh, in civil society, and stories of empathy, mutual aid, brotherhood or sisterhood on... on the line of fire, some fantastic stories of help, mutual aid, but also stories of indifference, of stupid deaths, of avoidable casualties and so on , that is, we have both a soviet and a non-soviet interface within the armed forces, this is a very

patchy story, it looks very different, and since there are to a large extent these extremes that are in competition, in the balance between. the battle raises the question of whether the change will lead to to the strengthening of this more modern, that is , trend, which is aimed at increasing dignity, which is aimed at preserving human lives, actually during the forum there was such a very good formula of human-centric militarization, actually how. as a description of what we need to move towards, and the actual question arises whether there will be more people-centeredness, or on the contrary we will retreat with a new leader, or on the contrary we will retreat to a state where a person becomes a resource, an expendable resource, a resource that, for example , in

soviet times could simply be used with with this zhukovsky formula of women and what they offend and so on, and here i... see that there is a significant level of anxiety, and this level of anxiety, it either converts into mistrust, or on the contrary , converts into trust, after we see already, i would say, the first actions that will allow us to talk about the fact that, for example , the handwriting of the new commander-in-chief looks like this, huh, and of course that the stories we hear... from within the armed forces, they are disturbing, just as disturbing a factor is that there is no open conversation with society about the issue why exactly such a replacement was needed , i.e., to speak archetypal, we have a situation between zelensky and zaluzhny, which is very

similar to the relationship between kuchma and yushchenko, i.e. , on the one hand, we have a popular figure that society does not really know, society is a big did not know who. such a yushchenko and the society to a large extent does not know who is such a hard worker, but because of objective and subjective factors. on the one hand, because we have the media limitations that we have now, on the other hand, because... the feature the actual army figures is that they are less public, but the consequence of this is that people project their expectations onto this figure, and then, as happened with yushchenko, when at a certain moment the expectations were not met, they actually led to his the defeat in the elections in 2010, and the similarity of... types does not mean that we necessarily have to move in this way, that is , history can in some cases follow

precedents, in some cases set precedents, but it would be much better for society , if society understood that what is happening and in general what we see and what is disturbing is that there is some built-in desire within the state apparatus to objectify people. to objectify society, and it manifests itself in many factors: 30 sbu officers who monitor journalists is a very bad signal, and it is not the head of the department who allows this to be fired, but the head of another department, and when we talk about its relations with the state in general society, then we do not see a frank, albeit closed, but frank conversation between sectors, that is, actually forum... which is about the fact that the military, business, churches, civil

society, think tanks, universities, could talk to each other and reconcile their views, reconcile their visions, and here i have, and here i have a very skeptical the question arises , i saw these conversations, i understand what you were talking about, and it was from there that a lot of thoughts and ideas were generated and... and there was such a wonderful metaphor of a liner that was captured by pirates, and someone on this liner is already fighting pirates, someone is buying weapons from other liners, someone is sitting and drinking coffee or playing the orchestra is there, and i forgot which of the participants said very well that it resembles a meeting of heads of condominiums, a burning ship, so my question is skeptical, whether these heads of condominiums can be heard by five or six efficient bank managers, well, actually, i am even like that

such a task is not set, that is, it is not, conventionally speaking , a gathering of people so that they write some rebuttal and this rebuttal is somewhere out there, which means it got there and so on, it is rather a test of a common language, whether we from different sectors understand each other, whether we can feel what one or the other says, and can we translate it with... my language, and there are also, i would say, mixed feelings, because business speaks business, there are think tanks in their bird language, civil society in their language, politicians who were present and government officials who were present in their own language, some participants are bilingual, which allows them to translate, but some do not, and if we compare the russian system, for example , the ukrainian system, then... is vertically hierarchical, it is united around vertical shearing, ukrainian is

so strong, we're talking about a network society, how strong is the connection between those who are on the horizon, and what we saw is that these connections are very important to develop, including if we want to get democracy in the country and to maintain democracy we can put an equal sign between maintaining democracy and maintaining independence because if we maintain democracy... democracy is a system that is sensitive to the voices of minorities, it means that every person within the country has a chance that her voice will be important, will be heard if we get out of that model, then suddenly there are those who say, wait, wait, wait, this is not my system, i don't have to defend it, and there is an avoidance of responsibility, a refusal to take part.

an attempt to build horizontal communication, it is actually very important from the point of view of the stability of the existence of the ukrainian state in general, although it may not look like that from the outside , well, if you think about it, a scientist cannot get along with a businessman, well, i just believe that a scientist and a businessman will get along, but i don't ... the mechanism by which in this way, these network connections and this understanding can affect the aircraft that the team and the captain of the ship are driving. where in a sharp pike down, for example, yes or where simply in the captain's cabin they do not hear these voices and the work of all these think tanks and so on, that is, i do not understand how in the conditions, as you very correctly said, of a single telethon, surveillance of journalists, dismissal of military commanders and not

only, but ministers and so on, without any explanation, yes, that is, in... in a situation that looks like in principle dictatorship and totalitarianism, yes , how to combine it and how to save the state, let's say this, i would make a disclaimer here, and any democratically elected leader during the war will seek centralization, so what may look like just a desire to turn the system into an autocratic one. can be part of a natural reflex that occurs when you need to have a more manageable situation in a crisis . secondly, i am absolutely convinced that if we are faced with any consequences of a totalitarian culture, then this is an echo of of the past we do not have political players who

would seriously like to establish a totalitarian regime in ukraine. well, at least not from the ukrainian side, that is, the russians set the totalitarian rules of the game, but there is not a single ukrainian subject, there is neither a servant of the people, nor the eu, nor any other parliamentary forces, they are ready in one way or another to exploit the system's imperfections , but we are not talking about the destruction of millions of people, we are not talking about any such harsh things, so that is why i, in order for the discussion ... not to be swayed and not go to extremes, i try to do the same, and i urge , i try to be strict myself, i encourage others to be strict in these discussions, because otherwise we actually burn this trust, and later, when we once again cry wolves, others will not know whether they are wolves or we just want to draw their attention and so on and so forth, and if we talk about why it is important

to get along horizontally, the answer is simple, because... in this way we can transfer mandate, transfer trust, transfer social capital to each other, because concentration of social capital in ukraine is of great importance in determining who sets the agenda, and the agenda can be set by those in authority if they have a high enough level of trust, but if they do not have a high enough level of trust, then the initiative in shaping the order day will be in civil society. will be in the church, will be in someone else's, and actually there is a question of who has more influence on the agenda, who defines it, and there is a lot of anxiety in civil society about what is happening in the state, because it is very easy to ensure the cooperation of all parties when the administration

is popular, 70-80% support its actions and so on, and... we encountered the first serious defeat with the failure of the counteroffensive, the expectations for the counteroffensive were inflated, they were heated by a miracle , which happened in the kharkiv region in the fall of 22, they were aggravated by the fact that this global coalition is being built in support of ukraine and so on, and when we did not get the... result we expected, suddenly, changes began in attitude of citizens to the fact that says the state, the number of people wanting to join, for example, the military has sharply decreased, and the levels of trust in state institutions have begun

to creep downward, that is, we are seeing this very serious change of the game, and what is being tried in such a situation? what can the administration try to do in such a situation, it can try to continue what it did before, it can try to become more accountable, and that is the real question that now stands at this critical moment, can we build a relationship where all parties, business, civil society, church, there and so so on and so on and so on, we trust the actions of the political leadership, which has an enormous responsibility, or with some... suspicion or with some reservations, and how do you answer this question, i am very interested, i answer it is so that it is difficult to build trust, because such stories, such as, for example, the story with mazepa. with business, such stories as the bigusinfo surveillance story, such stories, they do not help, they do not help to establish this trust, and if

circumstances arise where, for example, the first persons under they are trying to protect themselves under the pressure of traditions, and this, probably, in my opinion, is the most logical, the most logical reason why the reform of law enforcement does not take place to the end. bodies, why there is no reform of the justice system and so on, because then the elite feels terribly vulnerable, and fears that in response to these reforms, it will actually suffer revenge from its successors. if we see that there are such fears, then it is very important that all participants begin to behave in such a way that these fears... are eliminated, but at the same time we see that law enforcement agencies are limitless, we see that absolutely amazing court decisions arise very often, we see that it is very difficult to see

any coordination in a significant part of the executive power, how many ministries are without ministers, how many embassies are without ambassadors, that is, there are failures there , where they should not arise, or such situations as, for example, there with the appointment of, for example, the ambassador to bulgaria and so on, which simply cannot... be explained in some rational categories, and this exacerbates mistrust at the moment when on there are much more important issues on the agenda. the unity of society in the face of the russian threat is an important issue, the transition from the sprint mode to the marathon mode, when we understand that the war is not for a year, not for two, for three, for five, maybe longer, it means that completely different safety margins. and now it is important to build these reserves of strength, and in order to finish with this block, to move on to the future, i will also ask the following phrase on the forum: the war is

a counter-revolution of dignity, what do you invest in it, how does the war sharpen what was actually won on the maidan, yes, how does the war change the social contract and what is the danger? we had three social contracts during the independence of ukraine. the first social contract with which ukraine gained independence is the soviet social contract. the essence of which is that citizens give up their rights in exchange for social security guaranteed by the state. the state did not fulfill these social guarantees, they became less and less and less valuable each time, and accordingly, surely. a part of society appeared, which said: we leave this social contract, we went to provide for ourselves independently, and then there was an evolution of the social contract

from the soviet to an intermediate one, the nestor group called it the social contract of corruption consensus, the essence of which is approximately , that we citizens don't ask the state difficult questions, and you, the state , don't ask us difficult questions either, we are busy and you are busy, we don't ask where your mercedes is from, you don't ask why. we don't pay taxes. contract corruption consensus is such a non-aggression pact between elites and society, which was very harshly violated by yanukovych. and there was no way to turn it back and make it work. accordingly, there is a revolution of dignity, and the revolution of dignity brings for the first time in history a social contract, which the nestorian group called the contract of dignity, the essence of which is that citizens and elites recognize what they have together. responsibility for something very valuable and very important for all of them, for an independent state, and this independent state gives us security, gives us opportunities, gives us some

quality of life, and for this it makes sense for us to cooperate, and accordingly we begin to get used to behave in such a way that it is mutually beneficial for us. citizens learn to treat the state with respect, and not with fear and hatred, as was the case for many decades, the state begins to treat citizens this way. very respectfully, recognizing its dignity, and accordingly, recognizing their dignity, and accordingly, if we look at the large number of all kinds of reforms that have been carried out, decentralization, digitalization, there is an educational reform and so on, these reforms are aimed at increasing dignity, now what happens next, a full-scale invasion begins, society goes into a zero- sum game mode, it's either you survive, or who or a... or your enemy survives, and the zero-sum game mode actually reduces the space in which a win-win is possible, and at that

point... there is a risk that the citizens will also switch to a certain configuration, for example, if the distrust of the authorities is high, in the model relations of a zero-sum game as well against one's own ukrainian state, and this is probably the worst thing that can happen, because the transition from a strategy of joint victory to a strategy of personal survival is a transition that weakens us all, well, in essence, it is a strategy of defeat, it defeat strategy, yes. this is a strategy of defeat, which can be postponed , which may not be immediately, but, but there is nothing to cling to, that is, it is a strategy of disunity, it is a strategy that does not give the opportunity to build a solidary, joint action, and as a result of this, we are in a certain moment we can, we risk reaching a point, and i especially emphasized that we are not at this point, that is, there is still enough trust in the system, that is, it is not very important for us to be realistic and not cry

wolves when. .. there is not yet what should happen now, what should happen now so that this strategy of defeat does not work, so that this defeat scenario does not start, well, such and such actions of each side in relation to the other side must take place, which will be able to give them the opportunity to establish trust in each other society government society, society among themselves, business there and customers and so on , if... a business, for example, behaves in relation to its customers in such a way that customers cannot trust the business, they turn their backs and go and buy themselves services or goods elsewhere, this business will burn out , and the situation is much more difficult with its democracy, because especially when there are no elections, there is no possibility to change, for example, one team to another, which means that we all have to admit that we are in the i like the situation we are in

zelensky, i don’t like him, he is legally... the elected and legitimate president of the country, he will be longer than his term, because it is impossible to hold elections during war in such a way that they are recognized by society itself, i am not talking about international ones international observers and so on, so that the society itself recognizes that these elections are legitimate, because a large number of people do not live where they are registered, it is impossible to ensure a normal campaign or vote. that is, in other words, we, until we win the war, we are in the configuration that exists, this means that in this situation we must all behave in such a way as not to give the other a reason not to trust us, and this is a very difficult obligation, because it obliges not only the administration, but in fact, what was very clearly heard at a certain

moment... on the forum, is what the participants were saying about what someone has to do in order for us to win, it's up to everyone, and this is a question, this is asking and and internally, at a certain point, a correction worked, that is, both through the moderators and through other participants who they said: no, look, it's very easy to shift the responsibility to someone, the question is what are we doing, the question is whether we look far enough ahead, whether we understand what we have to do here and now and so on, and. .. and i see some trends that generally seem to me to be healthy, for example, and i look inside the business environment, how the attitude towards paying taxes has changed, paying taxes, which until recently looked like a necessary evil, uh, and in some in cases of avoided evil, now begins to become a factor of responsibility, because the same business is the beneficiary of the benefits that

create. taxes, yes, after all, you and i all use supermarkets, take public transport and so on and so forth, we don't have the collapse that would happen at the start of a full-scale invasion, we have a predictable national currency rate and so on and so on so on, that is, we have a huge number of blessings that we take for granted every day, but in order for us to continue to rely on each other, we have, we have to... be more careful with each other, we have to follow by what words we say to each other, whether we keep our commitments, and whether we are open to sometimes very uncomfortable changes. and the example i gave is that it is very important for the society of civilians who are not in the armed forces to see that the armed forces adopts a philosophy of people-centeredness.