Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky opened the 16th annual Yalta European Strategy conference on Sept. 13 by defining what happiness means for himself and for the nation he now leads – as well as asking a few members of the select audience in the front row what makes them happy.
For himself, Zelensky said he’s happy when he sees his wife, Olena, is happy (“when she is smiling, I am happy,”) and he makes his 6-year-old son happy when he gets home before he goes to sleep at night.
Making Ukraine happy is much more difficult, but Zelensky laid out a campaign-style critique of what is wrong with the Ukrainian family and now to fix it.
He used the analogy of “an average Ukrainian family” sitting around a dinner table. One member is permanently missing — killed in Russia’s war. Another family member is working abroad, perhaps with a doctorate degree but picking tomatoes in Poland to send home money. The grandparents are feeling useless because they don’t have pensions to enjoy their retirement years and travel. And the children around the family table are thinking about leaving their homeland altogether. Other members of the extended family are working hard in business, but not able to pay taxes and suffering from bureaucracy — “the other circles of hell.”
This average family, he said, is part of the war, poverty and injustice that Ukraine confronts, a nation where, he said suffering seems to be part of the DNA.
The YES conference was opened by its founder, billionaire oligarch Victor Pinchuk, who drew attention to a poll showing that more than 60 percent of Ukrainians believe they will be happier in five years than they are today. It’s a sign of optimism — but also a reminder of the unhappiness with the status quo that led to Zelensky’s landslide election over President Petro Poroshenko in May.
At Zelensky’s request, Pinchuk first called up film director Oleg Sentsov, released among 35 Ukrainians on Sept. 7 after being imprisoned by Russia. Sentsov asked simply for Zelensky to do everything he can to get the freedom of hundreds of others of Ukrainians still held by Russia as part of its five-year war against Ukraine.
“Am I happy to be president? I am not sure,” Zelensky said. “But I am very happy to be president of Ukraine.”
He said he became president because, even though he was a happy, well-to-do and famous entertainer for decades before he became president, “you cannot be happy alone.” He said that he found it “unbearable to be happy among unhappy people and hide your happiness among my fellow citizens.”
He said that while he and his team enjoy the trust of Ukrainians now, this trust is “also a great responsibility because if we fail, that will create another all-national depression.”
To build another country, he said, Ukrainians have to overcome not just poverty, but corruption and jealousy.
“Ukraine has to come back as victors, we have to bring our territories back,” he said, noting that diplomacy and sanctions — “the most important weapon” — are necessary. While some in the West complain they “they are losing money” because of sanctions against Russia, Zelensky counters that “we are losing our people.”
He said that Ukraine needs a reach a point, like “in the civilized world,” where paying taxes “is a normal thing.” He also wants the millions of labor migrants to return home to Ukraine, but to do that, he needs to end oligarch privileges, create an open and competitive market, establish rule of law and protect private investors. “The right to private property is a sacred right, without any exception,” he said.
To those ends, Zelensky said he is rebooting the entire criminal justice system, from prosecutors to judges, and has already taken steps towards rule of law, noting the new parliament’s lifting of legal immunity from criminal prosecution. More will come, he said. “Happiness is having a thief in prison,” he said.
He went on to outline an agenda to rebuild the country by having “high-quality medical care, comfortable infrastructure, comfortable social protections,” he said, items that for Ukrainians are now “just a dream.”
Returning to his theme of a happy family around the Ukrainian dinner, he talked about another missing chair — one that should belong to Ukraine’s international partners, to whom he offered his personal guarantees of security if they invest in Ukraine.
He then outlined all the possible investment projects across the nation — irrigation in Kherson, IT in Kharkiv, creating a “Ukrainian Hollywood” in Kyiv, others in Ivano-Frankivsk and Zaporhyzhia, making the Black Sea a resort haven, turning the Carpathian Mountains into an “East European Alps.”
“Ukraine is the coolest country in the world,” he said. “I am happy to be here.”
In a question-answer session with moderator Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relatons, Zelensky expressed hope in upcoming Normandy format peace talks — involving Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France — and a meeting with U.S President Donald J. Trump in the White House.
He said both will happen in September.
He expressed coolness to the idea of international peacekeepers stationed in Russia’s eastern Donbas. Noting the situation with other nations, he said peacekeepers remain as permanent dividers. He said the better location for peacekeepers would be on the Ukrainian-Russian border, which he would welcome. “They can be there if they want to,” he said to applause.
He said he is involved in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change Ukraine, and doesn’t want to blow it. He knows Ukrainians “crave changes,” so whatever promises he makes, he will keep them.
“I want to be president and stay a person, a human being,” he said. “I am already making mistakes, but prepared to admit my mistakes. I am prepared to change everything for the success of my country.”
While he was born in a Russian-speaking family, he now speaks Ukrainian and is “proud of my emerging English.”
He also complained that oligarchs control entire sectors of the economy and promised that will change.
“We propose normal rules of the game. We cannot tolerate monopolists in Ukraine any longer. We should have an open market.” The oligarchs “have to understand if country collapses and people leave, who will work in their factories?”
He wouldn’t divulge his strategy for getting Crimea away from Russia , but said he is committed to “bringing back the Crimea” to Ukrainian control.
He was asked one last question about Ukraine’s relationship with the United States. He expressed gratitude for the recent release of not only $250 million in aid, but also another $140 million in supplemental assistance, much of it to help bolster Ukraine’s military.
“I would like to thank the US for its constant support of our sovereignty and territorial integrity,” noting he’s had several “very good” telephone conversations with Trump, he said.
“We have a very good relationship with our strategic partner, and I’m grateful to the USA for its assistance,” Zelensky said.
