Editor’s Note: The 16th annual Yalta European Strategy conference took place in Kyiv on Sept. 12-14. The subject of this year’s gathering was “Happiness Now: New Approaches for a World in Crisis.” In line with a three-year tradition, the Kyiv Post — a media partner of the event — picks the best and the worst moments.
WINNERS
Ihor Kolomoisky
He showed up midway through the first day and stole the show. Billionaire oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky was swarmed by journalists, with whom he spoke for three hours on almost every Ukraine-related subject under the sun. While many questions were probing and serious, it was difficult not to feel like Kolomoisky was a celebrity amid adoring fans.
This was Kolomoisky’s first time at YES and his first public appearance since his return to Ukraine in May after two years in self-imposed exile because of his conflict with ex-President Petro Poroshenko.
Given the conference’s lackluster “Happiness” theme and fairly predictable lineup, his arrival was easily a highlight. Whatever the press writes about Kolomoisky, he is back on top of Ukrainian politics.
Oligarchs
Victor Pinchuk, Vadym Novynsky, Ihor Kolomoisky, Pavlo Fuks — there were a lot of oligarchs at YES. The event is already an oligarch festival: it is funded by Pinchuk and burnishes his image and that of his father-in-law, Ukraine’s authoritarian second president, Leonid Kuchma, who ruled for a decade. But the presence of oligarchs seemed even greater this time.
At least three — Pinchuk, Kolomoisky, and Fuks — were in the room for a lunchtime lecture titled “Corruption: Major Obstacle to Happiness,” a farcical scene that would have seemed unrealistic in a work of fiction, but was simply reality at YES.
The oligarchic presence cast a shadow over an event that was otherwise a celebration of President Volodymyr Zelensky, who attended the conference for the first time as president. Zelensky used to do business with Kolomoisky. As a presidential candidate, he promised a break from the corruption and dirty dealing of previous Ukrainian presidents. The arrival of Kolomoisky and the presence of other oligarchs was a stark reminder that less has changed than many would like.
Volodymyr Zelensky
The conference was, by and large, a huge win for Zelensky. YES offered him the opportunity to meet and rub shoulders with policymakers, foreign dignitaries, and global thinkers. He was the toast of the conference, and it often appeared like the event was tailored to curry favor with him.
During his opening speech on the morning of Sept. 13, Zelensky invited Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, freed a week earlier from Russian captivity in a prisoner exchange, on stage. It was both a touching moment and an opportunity for Zelensky to demonstrate his accomplishments, The president deployed his actor’s charisma to charm the audience with promises of reform and economic development.
His old comedy team, Kvartal 95, performed in English for the first time, and Zelensky got laughs interacting with the actor who plays him on Ukrainian TV. During panel discussions with members of his administration, moderators lobbed softball questions that often focused on personality more than substance. Public Q&A sessions were few. Zelensky even got praise from Hollywood actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher and an Instagram photo of dinner with them and his wife, First Lady Olena Zelenska.
Actress Mila Kunis (front, left) and her husband Ashton Kutcher (front, right) dine with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska in Kyiv on Sept. 14. Kunis and Kutcher were in Kyiv for the Yalta European Strategy conference. (Olena Zelenska's Instagram)
Ashton Kutcher
As a rule, the YES conference is filled with top thinkers and global leaders. So how is it that some of the smartest words at the event were delivered by a Hollywood actor known for playing such paragons of intellectual mediocrity as Michael Kelso on “That ‘70s Show” and Jesse Montgomery III in laugh-free 2003 stoner comedy “Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Believe us, we’re scratching our heads, too.
In fairness to Kutcher, he isn’t the characters he plays on screen. He’s also a venture capitalist and savvy investor. Kutcher was not on the official YES lineup. Instead, his wife, Ukrainian-born actress Mila Kunis, was the surprise guest on Sept. 14. But halfway through her talk, moderator Fareed Zakaria called Kutcher onstage.
In brief remarks, Kutcher commented on technology, the need to battle the illegal computer hacking prevalent in Ukraine, and the struggle with corruption.
“Everybody understands that eliminating corruption is very difficult, but if it is done over time, this will provide solid foundation to build up,” Kutcher said. “Ukraine has many technical talents, and there are no reasons why it would not become a leading technology power.”
And Kutcher’s brief comment on the internet — “The internet used to reflect the world, now the world reflects the internet” — seemed a far better explanation of why people are unhappy than virtually anything other speakers said about happiness.
Both Kunis and Kutcher said they had met with Zelensky during their visit to Ukraine. They expressed optimism about his presidency and seemed just a few steps away from full-on endorsing him.
Svyatoslav Vakarchuk
Former rock musician turned lawmaker Svyatoslav Vakarchuk was the only person at YES who voiced some criticism of President Zelensky and his ruling party.
Vakarchuk criticized the decision of the parliament to dismiss members of the Central Election Commission at Zelensky’s order. The president had accused the commission members of bias and procedural violations during the elections, which he won. This is despite the fact the international observers declared the elections free and competitive and broadly praised the commission’s work.
Vakarchuk’s party Voice voted against the proposal. At YES, he called the move “the prevailing of political interests.”
“I’ve seen it done by previous presidents who promised to build institutions but then left the (old) rules and just changed the people. It’s not about new faces. It’s about institutions and principles,” he said in a jibe against Zelensky, a political novice who won the presidency by a popular vote and whose television fame and social media presence allowed him to bring an army of little-known lawmakers into the parliament.
“I’m a big believer in the rules of institutions. Most Western countries, which are an example for us, are united by the existence of institutions that can outlast any political leader however strong or popular or weak he or she is,” Vakarchuk said. “Strong institutions, not personalities can provide a long-term, successful, and irreversible path to change.”
Israeli historian and author Yuval Noah Harari delivers a speech on global threats that humanity faces at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv on Sept. 13, 2019. (Aleksandr Indychii/YES)
Yuval Noah Harari
Climate change is already happening, and we’re thankful to Israeli historian Yuval Harari for bringing up this issue, which rarely appears in political discourse in Ukraine. Even at YES, which had “global challenges” and “world in crisis” in its theme, climate change didn’t make it into the main part of the conference and was discussed at only one of the six nightcap sessions.
Amid standard fare at Ukrainian conferences — for example, fighting corruption and improving rule of law — Harari spoke of the threats that humanity is facing in the future, such as nuclear war, climate change, technological disruption. They can’t be solved by individual nations and require global cooperation.
Previously, Harari sparked controversy by agreeing to modify some passages of the Russian edition of his book, “21 Lessons for the 21st Century,” that dealt with the annexation of Crimea and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lies. At YES, he finally addressed this issue. Harari said the decision was difficult, but ultimately he wants Russians to be part of the conversation about the global issues his book addresses.
“The book is not about Russia, Ukraine, or Crimea,” he said. “It’s about climate change, AI, digital dictatorships and so on. It is a global conversation. And it’s very important to have Russian people in it. If you exclude people who live in undemocratic societies, it won’t be global.”
Harari’s lesson to Ukrainians was to free themselves from “deterministic thinking that the past dictates the future.”
“Ukraine suffered through a series of tragedies over the last century. But history isn’t destiny. You need to know your history but don’t be enslaved by it,” he said.
The world is watching Ukraine at a time when many are questioning whether the era of liberal democracy has come to an end and the future belongs to authoritarian regimes.
“Ukraine is like a spot of light where people still have faith in the values of freedom and openness. That’s why everybody is looking whether it will succeed,” Harari said.
Nightcaps
It was public policy overload on the night of Sept. 13. Simultaneously, in Kyiv’s Mystetsky Arsenal, discussions with high-level speakers were taking place in six places. It was hard to pick just one.
In one room, one could hear two retired generals, Phil Breedlove and Ben Hodges; former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and Russia John F. Tefft, former Vladimir Putin aide Andrei Illarionov and National Security and Defense Secretary Oleksandr Danylyuk talk about Ukraine and Russian relations.
In another room, a former president of Poland and former prime minister of Sweden were among those who talked about the future of Europe.
In a third room, Naftogaz CEO Andrey Kobolev and ex-NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen talked about Ukraine’s energy future.
In a fourth room, a climate change discussion was under way, and in a fifth location a discussion about happiness and public policy took place.
If that wasn’t enough, the sixth nightcap featured Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist Anne Applebaum talking about the Holocaust and the Soviet Gulag with fellow writer Jonathan Littell in an event moderated by historian Niall Ferguson.
Mothers of slain soldiers
In a poignant photo exhibit that focused attention on the suffering from Russia’s war on Ukraine, the conference featured 300 photographs of mothers of Ukrainian soldiers killed in battle. It was a project of Dzerkalo Tyzhnya magazine.
LOSERS
Women
The world is filled with male-dominated conferences. Unfortunately, YES wasn’t an exception.
Almost all panels were all-male or had just one female speaker. There were seven women speakers (four of whom spoke at a panel on climate change), one female moderator, and two actresses — special guests. Only nine women, against a total of 60 men, took the stage over two days.
The conference on global challenges, the future of humanity, and happiness completely overlooked half of the world’s population and did not address trends towards greater diversity, inclusivity, and gender equality.
Surely, there are women who could have been invited to talk and moderate sessions. At YES, men gave their opinion and view on virtually every topic, including women’s issues.
One of the panel moderators, American diplomat Richard Haas, asked Ukraine’s male minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fyodorov, about the struggles of Ukrainian women and girls against prejudice and discrimination in the workplace. It was an odd choice given there was a woman on the panel, Education Minister Hanna Novosad.
Speaker of the Ukrainian parliament Dmytro Razumkov (L), leader of the Voice party Svyatoslav Vakarchuk (C) and lawmaker from the Batkivshchyna party Ivan Krulko speak at the Yalta European Strategy conference in Kyiv on Sept. 14, 2019. (Sergei Illin/YES)
Happiness
We all want to be happy. But holding a conference entirely focused on the issue doesn’t appear to be bringing us any closer to that goal.
Organizers likely hoped that the topic would prove philosophical and get at the substance of human existence. Unfortunately, it more often proved to be a platform for pontification. The subject matter allowed speakers to avoid difficult subjects while paying lip service to economic development, anti-corruption, and Ukraine’s European path.
At its best, the conference provoked discussion about the intersection of state leadership and the promotion of happiness.
“People expect a government to make their lives happier,” said economist Jeffrey Sachs. “However, there are at least two obstacles: firstly, governments, as a rule, do not know how to go about that. Secondly, most governments haven’t even thought about it!”
At its worst, the program, which focused on “a world in crisis,” seemed rather isolated from that crisis. In today’s atmosphere of populism, billionaires talking about how more money doesn’t bring more happiness appear increasingly out of touch.
David Rubinstein
We heard David Rubinstein, the 70-year-old chairman of a global investment company The Carlyle Group, ask Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk, 35, whether it’s easy to get a date as prime minister. A frequent moderator this year at YES, which suffered from the absence of BBC HardTalk’s Stephen Sackur, Rubinstein also asked Honcharuk if his decision to wear a three-piece suit and tie was an attempt to break from the casual dress of young people. Surely, the older generation isn’t this out of touch.
Petro Poroshenko
You can’t win if you don’t show up. Former President Petro Poroshenko didn’t attend YES due to being questioned by the State Investigations Bureau on Sept. 13. Now a lawmaker and leader of the European Solidarity party, Poroshenko might have used the conference as an opportunity to criticize the new government, a meaningful contrast to YES’s otherwise pro-Zelensky love-fest atmosphere. In his absence, that duty fell on Vakarchuk.
No questions, please
Unlike previous years, the word “oligarch” was rarely heard this year and questions from the audience were even rarer. In the 16th incarnation of YES, the speakers on stage spoke, the audience listened. Some in attendance grumbled about not getting a voice. There’s also a multi-tier status system that was more pronounced this year than before. It used to be that a “participant” badge got a person everywhere. But so many tables had assigned seating that it was difficult to find a place. Generally, the “press” badge only allows journalists to roam the hallways and hopefully get lucky enough to bump into an interview subject during a break. While Pinchuk didn’t scrimp on honorariums, he did appear to economize on food and drink. He also, this year, put guests up in the InterContinental Kyiv hotel. In previous years, the guests stayed at the Premier Palace, which the Kyiv Post exposed on March 29 as the “Kremlin House” for its ownership by a Russian friend of Vladimir Putin, Alexander Babakov. Coincidence? We think not. But, while the Kyiv Post gets roundly criticized for serving as a media partner to the Pinchuk Show for the 5th year, so far he’s put up with us and we’ve put up with him. YES remains the best two-day networking event in Ukraine and the second-best conference in Ukraine, after the annual Kyiv Post Tiger Conference, which is a great event despite the newspaper’s inability financially to match Pinchuk’s outlays for speaker honorariums.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner contributed to this report.
