Defending Our Future: Why Ukraine's Fight Is the Frontline of European Security
Updated: 4 days ago
Some conversations ask you simply to bear witness. This was one of them.
On the day of the EIB Group Forum, I welcomed a packed studio: Oleksandra Matviichuk, Chairwoman of the Center for Civil Liberties and 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureate; Alona Shkrum, First Deputy Minister for Development and Reconstruction of Ukraine; Ambassador Barbara Karpetová of the Czech Republic; Inna Yaremenko, Vice President of LUkraine and representative in Luxembourg of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights; and Kristina, Head of the European Investment Bank in Ukraine.
Returning people their names
Oleksandra is a human rights lawyer documenting war crimes. Her network's database holds more than 98,000 episodes, and she insists there are real people behind every number.
While this war turns people into numbers, we are returning people their names.
She shared stories that are hard to hear and important to hear, including that of a professor held in solitary confinement for months who, in order to hear a human voice, lectured on philosophy to the rats in his cell. He told her his experience was no reason to see himself as a victim.
The basis of our existence is dignity, not victimhood. And dignity is action.
She also spoke about the tens of thousands of Ukrainian children illegally deported to Russia, which led the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants, and about her hope for a special tribunal on the crime of aggression, so that justice is no longer a privilege reserved for the victors.
Rebuilding while the war continues
Alona explained why Ukraine cannot wait for peace to rebuild. Without water, energy, schools and hospitals, people leave, and the economy and the country weaken. Around 4,000 kilometres of roads have been damaged, and more than three million homes destroyed, more than the entire housing stock of Denmark. She sees reconstruction not as charity but as a business case for European partners. She also told me her daughter spent her first night in a hospital bomb shelter.
Kristina described the EIB's work, including guarantee instruments for European and Ukrainian businesses investing together, and things she has seen that sound like science fiction, from partly underground infrastructure to futuristic anti-drone shelters.
Invincibility
This winter, Kyiv endured days without heat, water or power. Oleksandra described opening her building's group chat and reading neighbours' offers: use our gas oven, charge your phone at our generator, give us your shopping list. She realised then that they would survive the winter. Ukrainians call these places of shared warmth invincibility points.
What can we do?
Ambassador Karpetová and Inna explained the year-long Advocacy Coalition, Defending Our Future Now, bringing embassies and partners together for events and exhibitions across Luxembourg. Inna remembered how, in the first days of the full-scale invasion, around 700 Luxembourg families called within three days offering to host refugees.
The answer my guests kept returning to was unity, awareness and refusing indifference. As Oleksandra said, ordinary people can do extraordinary things. And every single life matters.
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