Wojcieh Przybylski: the war helped us understand how much progress Ukraine has achieved since 2014

Wojcieh Przybylski

The year of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed the world’s attitude towards our country. Humanity discovered Ukraine as a developed European state. Wojciech Przybylski, the editor-in-chief of Visegrád Insight, and the head of the ResPublica foundation in Warsaw shared with Newssky on how the attitude towards Ukraine, the EU, NATO, and Russia has changed.

1. The war helped me understand how much progress Ukraine has achieved since 2014. Despite so many problems, it has been resilient because it addressed corruption, and decentralization of power to a local level, and proceeded with a lot of EU integration policies. The military success so far has been largely to the effort of the Ukrainian society and authorities to bring back agency to your democracy. And it earns respect.
2. The EU is more than a peace project by now. War has helped to solidify early attempts at making the EU a solid political actor taking risks and projecting its influence beyond just big words. It actually delivers and it will continue to transform. At the same time, NATO has proven to be an indispensable element of a European security system. Therefore, new EU and NATO agreements that were recently enforced have made a difference in delivering Ukraine’s new defence capabilities.
3. Through the war the Russian Federation has turned out to be what we have always suspected. A hoax country – a glimpse of a former empire run today by mafia people who prioritize individual self-interest over the good of the society, not to mention neighbours.

Українською

Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky’s own correspondent (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland), head of the V5 Media project, contributed