The clusters opened for both countries form the core of economic integration with the EU, covering, among other things, the rules of competition.

Meanwhile, another priority has popped up in Luxembourg.

This, too, is about competition, but not economic.

When accession negotiations were opened, the EU proved willing to keep Ukraine and Moldova in sync and avoid decoupling the two countries in the accession process. But when it comes to closing the negotiations, Ukraine is seriously lagging behind.

European Pravda sources indicate that Moldova is to begin an official progress assessment, also known as an IBAR, this year. Chișinău intends to demonstrate that it has met the initial accession benchmarks set by the EU over the summer. Kyiv is still far from reaching this stage, but Vsevolod Chentsov, Deputy Prime Minister for European integration, emphasised that this is becoming a priority for Ukraine as well.

Brussels also points out that Ukraine has begun to mention the term IBAR. 

However, EU officials observe that Kyiv is still limiting itself to declarations rather than taking action.

As a result, the EU is making more ambitious statements about Moldova. For example, it has suggested that accession negotiations with Moldova could be concluded in 2028.

It is already clear that opening two more negotiating clusters will require further concessions from Ukraine, and Hungary will no longer stem the source of the problems. Countries with elections just around the corner could become centres of resistance, including Poland and France. That is why it is important to open the clusters before these countries enter the final stages of their election campaigns. There were some encouraging, though cautious, signs of progress in Luxembourg.

The foundations of EU accession, but in the economy

On 13 October in Luxembourg, on the sidelines of the ministerial meeting, the European Union gave greenlit the next steps towards accession for Albania, Moldova and Ukraine. The EU opened two negotiating clusters for Ukraine: Cluster 2 – Internal Market, and Cluster 3 – Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth.

"Tomorrow, I will be happy to replace the 17 red tokens on the 'enlargement wall' in my office with yellow ones for Ukraine," European Commissioner Marta Kos, responsible for accession negotiations with candidate countries, commented on the decision.

As a result, Ukraine now has 24 of the 33 main negotiating chapters open – that is, the vast majority.

When discussing negotiating clusters in the EU accession process, the one most often mentioned is the Fundamentals cluster. It includes issues such as the rule of law, combating corruption, democracy and more. Under the EU’s established rules, a candidate country’s progress on the Fundamentals determines the course of negotiations across all the other chapters.

The clusters opened now do not have the same status, but they are also crucial.

"Clusters 2 and 3 form the economic core of Ukraine’s accession process and, in many respects, the economic core of our country’s transformation," Deputy Prime Minister Chentsov explained in Luxembourg. "The chapters we have opened now concern virtually every aspect of how the economy functions. This is about bringing our economies closer together, strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and building a more resilient European future. Today, we took another important step towards that goal."

The European Union has now officially committed to the gradual integration of candidate countries. The key element of this approach is granting them access to the tools and mechanisms of the single market even before they formally join the EU.

This will only be possible after economic reforms have been implemented – precisely the reforms covered by Clusters 2 and 3.

A new priority for Ukraine

Ukrainian officials discussing EU accession used to emphasise that the main challenge at this stage was to open all the negotiating chapters.

This task had already been on the Ukrainian government’s agenda last year, but it proved impossible to accomplish back then. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán blocked Ukraine’s path to EU membership, rallying his electorate around the idea. With a change in the Hungarian government, the process began to move forward, but not immediately, and only gradually.

Throughout this period, Ukrainian diplomats were also working to ensure that the European Union did not decouple Ukraine and Moldova. The EU was receptive to this argument, so the two countries proceeded jointly through all the legal stages on the path to accession.

A future EU member must incorporate the provisions of the EU’s acquis communautaire into its national legislation. Within the framework of the negotiations, a candidate country can only demonstrate to the Europeans that certain provisions have been implemented and negotiate transitional periods or specific exemptions.

Each candidate country faces its own challenges along the way and has its own list of benchmarks set by the EU when each negotiating cluster is opened. Each capital also conducts its negotiations with the EU separately, and progress depends on achievements – on the implemented reforms.

Therefore, once negotiations have begun across all clusters, keeping Ukraine and Moldova in sync becomes less important. But until all the clusters are opened, the two countries continue to be coupled.

But a new factor has emerged that could put Moldova ahead of Ukraine.

There is also an intermediate stage – IBAR (Interim Benchmark Assessment Report). This is one of the decisive stages on the path to EU accession.

A special procedure applies to two chapters within the Fundamentals cluster – the rule of law, anti-corruption, human rights and related issues.

Ukraine has been given interim benchmarks for these clusters. Only after these have been met will the EU provide the final criteria for the chapters.

Most importantly, meeting the interim benchmarks gives a candidate country the right to begin closing negotiating chapters – that is, to receive official confirmation that Ukraine or Moldova meets the requirements for EU accession.

The IBAR report serves as that confirmation.

Two European Pravda sources say that Moldova is preparing to initiate its IBAR process, which could begin as early as November. This would automatically put Moldova ahead of Ukraine in their couple since Ukraine has not yet reached this stage.

"Undoubtedly, the main priority for the government and parliament is to meet the interim benchmarks and secure a positive IBAR outcome. We are also eagerly awaiting the opening of the remaining two negotiating clusters," Chentsov said in Luxembourg.

However, when European Pravda asked a follow-up question, the deputy prime minister declined to predict when Ukraine might achieve this, saying "as soon as possible".

It makes sense, since the main tasks are largely beyond the government’s control.

The list of criteria Ukraine must meet to secure IBAR approval includes anti-corruption legislation, rule-of-law reforms, reform of the State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) and other measures. All of these require decisions by the Verkhovna Rada [Ukrainian parliament]. Bills addressing many of these issues are already in there, but without being brought to a vote.

Vsevolod Chentsov hinted that he sees room to negotiate compromises with Brussels.

It is not yet clear whether the EU is willing to make concessions on these reforms. However, any concessions are unlikely to be radical, as such an approach would not be acceptable to many EU capitals.

Nevertheless, the fact that the deputy prime minister has frequently brought up IBAR didn't go unnoticed in the European Union.

"This is the first time we have heard the Ukrainian government emphasise IBAR, and that is a good thing. But we also need to see decisions, not just statements," one senior EU official told European Pravda.

During the most recent parliamentary plenary weeks, anti-corruption bills remained off the agenda despite repeated appeals from the EU, including a personal appeal by Ursula von der Leyen during a conversation with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to European Pravda, however, she received assurances from the Ukrainian leader that Kyiv intends to implement these reforms.

It’s not just about Hungary

When discussing IBAR, we should not lose sight of Ukraine’s earlier objective: opening the remaining negotiating clusters.

As is well known, Péter Magyar’s government blocked Ukraine’s progress for several months. Initially, it imposed a veto without making any demands, echoing the bad old days of Viktor Orbán. Later, developments persuaded Budapest to change its approach. A constructive dialogue began, leading to a proposed solution: Ukraine would adopt amendments to its Law on Education, while the Hungarian government would present this as its own achievement to the Hungarian public and give the green light to further progress in the accession negotiations.

Recent developments suggest that Hungary has indeed changed its approach to relations with Ukraine, at least for now.

The Hungarians were entirely constructive in negotiations over the education law. And Prime Minister Péter Magyar, who had long avoided meeting the Ukrainian president, suddenly took the initiative himself, proposing talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Brussels. They are expected to meet on Friday.

However, Romania could become another obstacle to Ukraine’s progress towards the EU.

Romania has been experiencing a political crisis for roughly six months. This made the prolonged absence of an official response particularly concerning, given that the draft education law had been sent not only to the Hungarians but also to the Romanians. Eventually, President Nicușor Dan publicly expressed his full support for the law, which had been adopted by parliament.

Meanwhile, the task of opening the remaining two clusters has not disappeared.

These negotiating blocks are considered the most politically sensitive. 

Cluster 4, Green Agenda and Sustainable Connectivity, also covers transport and the single market for services – issues that are sensitive for Poland. 

Cluster 5, which concerns agriculture, is even more sensitive – and not just for Poland. The EU’s Common Agricultural Policy is widely considered to have long been in need of reform. In particular, the current rules governing the distribution of agricultural subsidies would not be able to accommodate Ukraine’s integration. Brussels is therefore already exploring compromise options that would clear the way for Kyiv’s accession.

There are no concrete solutions yet, but everyone is committed to finding them.

"Ukraine will become part of the European agricultural policy, but under a special model. The EU member states and, of course, Ukraine will have to decide exactly what that model will look like," European Commissioner Marta Kos told European Pravda.

"I see no reason why we should not be able to reach an agreement and open the clusters by the end of this year," Deputy Prime Minister Chentsov added, reiterating Kyiv’s position: exemptions for Ukraine are possible, but they must be temporary rather than permanent.

The political debate on this issue is expected to take place this week at the EU summit, to which President Zelenskyy has also been invited.

Not all European sources speaking to European Pravda share the optimism that a solution will be found by the end of the year. Marta Kos was also cautious in her forecasts. She spoke of hope, but not certainty.

Still, Ukraine’s main problem remains not the opening of the clusters, but the implementation of reforms.

Without meeting the benchmarks – above all, those covered by IBAR – there will be no meaningful progress.

And the difference in rhetoric regarding Ukraine and Moldova is already evident.

In the European Commission and in EU capitals, Chișinău is being praised for fulfilling its commitments.

"Everything is going really well at the moment. We support Moldova’s ambition to become an EU member by 2030. And if we look at past experience, we can see that it is technically possible to conclude accession negotiations as early as the first or second quarter of 2028," Marta Kos added.

No similar forecasts were made about Ukraine this time.

Also telling was the way the Irish presidency referred to progress on reforms in its official statement on the opening of the negotiations. "We encourage Ukraine to continue to implement necessary reforms, particularly in the area of Fundamentals," Thomas Byrne, Irish Minister of State for European Affairs, said when announcing the opening of Ukraine’s negotiating clusters.

If the pace of reform implementation in Ukraine does not accelerate, this gap could widen further. The IBAR issue clearly illustrates this trend.

Sergiy Sydorenko,

Editor, European Pravda, Luxembourg-Brussels

Herem is not a politician, but a career officer in the military.

And the new minister isn’t just any officer.

He is a full general, holding the highest military rank. Herem served as Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces from 2018 to 2022, and in that capacity he witnessed the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In this interview, he also acknowledges that he has been on the front line in Ukraine.

While in Kyiv, General Herem met with the editor of European Pravda to discuss this, as well as his expectations regarding Russia’s next attack, including whether Russia might attack NATO.

European Pravda is the first non-Estonian media outlet to interview Martin Herem since his appointment as defence minister.

"Prevent a Russian attack? I'm not sure if we can deter the mad person"

Ukrainians are used to saying that Ukraine will definitely not be the last country that is attacked by Russia. Do you believe that as well?

If I take into account the attitude of the Russian state [towards its neighbours], and if I look at what they are producing right now for military purposes, then I think when they stop here [in Ukraine] – it doesn't matter how, whether you kick them out beyond the border, or the war is frozen – then every day they will start collecting military fat. And given their attitude, they will definitely test somebody.

Whether their first attack will be against Estonia, I'm not sure. It could be Latvia or somewhere else.

What they want to achieve is influence. They need power.

For that they don't need to occupy us, for example, Estonia.

They need to harm us and make us distrust each other, both in Estonia and among the Allies.

And if we have any nasty, ugly aggression, and Russians are gathering along the border, then we don’t want to see it again. And then we may choose the Russia-proposed solution.

That's exactly what they want: influence and instability.

You referred to Estonia and Latvia as examples, I believe, because both are in NATO. Does that mean that you expect an attack on NATO?

They may do it against NATO just to break NATO.

Acting below [the threshold of] Article Five, you mean?

Below Article Five, or under Article Five.

Because when Article Five is invoked, and we win this conflict but the victory is too ugly, then many will start blaming NATO and each other. And that’s the moment when the Russians will offer their solution: "Let's talk, let's do business as usual," and so on. And once we are under Russian influence, we go down.

I grew up in the Soviet Union, I have some understanding about this.

And Estonia has a history which teaches that Russia always attacks.

For the last thousand years, yes.

Can you see any way of preventing those attacks from happening?

I'm not sure if we can deter the mad person. But what we have to do is to prepare. And that's the only thing.

We have to prepare very seriously [for an attack] and if we do that, we may prevent it.

We have to be ready.

What are some practical ways in which small countries can prepare to contain the aggression?

First, our own self-defence capability must be very, very strong.

We must be ready to fight like Ukraine – on the front line and in the rear. And also to be able to eliminate all the threats coming from the enemy's depth, which means we need to develop our own deep strike [long-range] capability as well.

And we cannot do it on our own. We need our allies. Usually Estonia is seen as a country without strategic depth. I say we have a strategic depth. All of Europe is our rear.

That’s why we have to pay special attention to the sea. And again, it's not aggressive, it's not blocking the Baltic Sea or anything. It's ensuring the sea lines of communication at any given time. And that's what we’re doing right now together with our allies.

During the interview with the minister

Photo: European Pravda

"In July 2022, I was in Estonian uniform on the front line in Ukraine"

Estonia is one of the countries active in the JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force).

JEF is a tool within NATO – it's not additional to NATO. JEF could make us faster to provide some support, but it still must follow the NATO plan. So it's nothing additional. It’s not an alternative – it's a small NATO inside NATO.

Does Ukraine have a place in the JEF?

I'm too young a minister to have any experience of discussions about Ukraine joining JEF, but I would say, if Ukraine has aspirations or a plan to join JEF, Estonia will definitely support it.

Let’s talk about Ukraine’s role in helping Estonia and NATO to deter threats and defend itself. You've just signed a drone deal. What are some practical ways to implement it?

The drone deal brings us not just technology, but experience.

And it's not just about how to operate an interceptor drone. It's about how to build our system of air defence or our system of fortifications, our counter-drone system. You have a lot of knowledge, a lot of data which we must adapt and bring to Estonia.

So it's not just the technology, and not even just the experience – it's about the knowledge.

How does it work in practical terms?

It could work in many ways. One of them is that we must come here to Ukraine and learn on the ground. Also, we must bring Ukrainian experts to Estonia to get advice on how we are building our defence line. That includes not just the fortifications or positions, but also sensors, energy, communications, all the necessary counter-drone assets and so on.

To be honest, it’s also about how we prepare our rear area – hospitals, local municipalities, police stations, energy, everything – against whatever air threat, be it an Iskander ballistic missile, a cruise missile, or hundreds of Shahed-type drones.

You mentioned that you could come here. Do you expect Estonian, i.e. NATO, military personnel in Ukraine during the war?

To be honest, we have been visiting since 2022.

I was here for the first time in July 2022 – I came here to learn. At that time, I was Commander of the Estonian Defence Forces.

How does that fit with statements that NATO military personnel are not in Ukraine?

In July 2022, I was in Estonian uniform on the front line, and the front line then was a few kilometres from Kharkiv. I was there in uniform.

The difference is that we do not operate here. We learn. So we don't take up weapons, we don't operate the radar or whatever. But we visit.

And this is not a threat to Russia at all.

But it is, because you bring what you’ve learned back to Estonia.

Estonia will never use this knowledge unless Russia crosses our border.

We have no plan to cross the border and attack Russia. We have no such plan and never have had. But if they come, then we will use everything we have learned from Ukraine.

"Russian hybrid attacks aim to keep conflicts warm"

Russia is not that active in conventional attacks against Estonia, but in the hybrid domain they are. Would you agree?

In the conventional domain, I don't think we should expect anything active from Russia as long as they are tied down here in Ukraine. But actually, with conventional power, sometimes you don't have to use it.

It's enough to show it.

It’s like my fist. (The general shows his fist.) Threatening with a fist is also something. Because if you show it, then one day you may use it. And since Russia is showing it, like they do today against us, that’s also part of conventional power.

How are they showing it?

They're building the Leningrad Military Region, for example. They're building new units. They are producing tanks, artillery, ammunition, aircraft, everything, behind our border.

Why are they doing this? They know NATO has no plan to cross the border. We have no plan to attack.

Then why are they building fortifications and new military bases behind the border of Finland? Why did they create this Leningrad Military Region and so on?

They’re doing it to threaten us, and maybe to prepare.

And what about hybrid threats?

Referring to hybrid operations, we used to talk about sabotage, cyber operations, information operations, whatever.

But in general, hybrid actions serve to prepare the conditions and the environment, keeping the conflict warm.

Because if you want to use conventional power, you need to explain to your own nation and to third countries that you had a problem with Estonia, or with the West. You need a kind of justification for your actions.

And no one will know later that it was you who caused the sabotage. The people in Russia only see that "we had a problem with them and we had to solve it". Now, [Russian] Foreign Minister [Sergei] Lavrov has said very clearly: everybody supporting Ukraine will be punished by us. He said it one or two months ago, and now we see their actions.

But all these hybrid actions just cause harm – it hurts – but it's not a threat to our being, our existence.

Photo: European pravda

Isn’t it? People in Estonia expect NATO to protect them against hybrid threats, and it doesn’t. This could also diminish public trust in the Alliance.

There are no good solutions, no good response, to this problem.

However, if you look at what the Russians have done during the last few months, for example – that armed drone in Germany [that attacked the airport], or when they set fire [to a military production base] in Estonia – what was our response? The Germans increased their support to Ukraine. Estonia decided to support Ukraine through PURL with another €10 million.

Next week we will have a meeting in Tallinn to discuss what kind of support we will send to Ukraine next year – and that will be more than €100 million just from Estonia.

These are actually the responses to all these acts, sabotage and so on. We say to Russia: you can try, but we will not stop.

And one more element of our response is the public disclosure of Russian actions.

If there is something burning, blowing up or falling down, and the Russian special services are behind it, then we must say that openly and attribute it to them as fast as possible. If Russia is not the cause and it's just criminal activity, then okay. But if the Russians are behind it, we must attribute it to them immediately.

"I would like to see Ukraine win this war"

How do you see Ukraine’s role in the future security architecture of Europe?

First, Ukraine has experience. And not just experience in fighting. You’ve learned how to stop this aggressor which is a threat to us as well. And your experience can contribute to European security.

Secondly, I think Ukraine must be an equal member of this security system. It doesn't matter whether we talk about the EU or NATO or whatever. Whether it would be full membership or some kind of association – that's up to Ukrainians and NATO. But if you asked me, I would say: why not full membership?

Is NATO ready to accept Ukraine as a full member?

I don’t know how we [Estonia] joined NATO – whether it was our success, or a miracle, or just a lucky moment.

I can tell you why. It’s because Russia was weak.

Russia was weak. And maybe not everyone realised what they were doing when they agreed to take us into NATO. I don't know.

But if we are in NATO, my question is:

Why wouldn't Ukraine join NATO then? What is the difference?

The only difference is that you have an active war going on right now. But when the war is over, frozen, whatever – why not?

For example, Estonia doesn't even have an official border with Russia. We are not at war, but still, we don't have an agreed border, and that’s also a little bit shaky.

So, it's up to the politicians, but first of all it’s up to the Ukrainian nation and then the other 32 Allied nations to decide.

As you mentioned, because Russia is stuck in Ukraine, they cannot attack you. They don’t dare to cross the border of Estonia, Latvia, Finland – anywhere. Doesn't that mean that to some degree, some Western allies may have an interest in keeping Russia stuck in Ukraine as long as possible?

I've been asked this many, many times. We may say yes, that's possible. But I say honestly: even if stopping the war here is risky for us because then the threat against us will grow, thinking like that goes against our values.

If we forget our values – freedom, democracy, whatever we want to achieve – then we will very soon lose everything.

That's why we should not abandon Ukraine. That's why we have to support Ukraine as much as possible – not to keep the war here, but to support Ukraine to win the war.

If somebody says "Maybe we should just keep the war boiling here, so it doesn’t come to us," that’s definitely not my aim or objective. I would like to see Ukraine win this war. That's my understanding.

Do you believe this is how other allies see it as well?

Maybe I'm too naive, but it's hard to believe that Latvians, Finns, Lithuanians or Poles have this kind of plan to keep Russia fighting here and to let Ukraine suffer. Maybe I'm too naive, but I say: I don't believe that. Because all of us – Finns, Latvians, Lithuanians – see Ukraine as our alter ego. And we don't want Ukraine to suffer. Definitely not.

Otherwise we would not spend so much money and resources or pay that much attention to this.

Sergiy Sydorenko

European Pravda

The programme was presented as a response to the anger spreading through France’s upper-secondary schools. By the weekend, France’s lycée protests had acquired a new political life. The students are planning another national day of action on Tuesday.

On Friday, 141 lycées were closed, a sharp fall from the first days of the protests. But the fact that the protests have become less widespread does not mean that the political problem has gone away.

France has spent years accumulating the conditions for this outburst.

It has neglected the ordinary machinery of public education, allowed regional inequalities to harden, and then responded to a student movement as if the principal issue were public order.

The result is a crisis that cannot be reduced either to youthful disorder or to police repression. Both are present. Neither explains the whole story.

A protest born in the classroom

The movement began around 21 September in schools in the Créteil education district, which includes much of France’s poorer eastern suburbs. The first complaints were about the daily experience of attending a school that often seemed unable to provide the basics.

A student in Aubervilliers had no French teacher while preparing for an important examination. In Sevran, pupils showed photographs of damaged chairs, holes in ceilings, mould, leaking roofs and broken toilets.

Some classrooms were difficult to heat in winter and difficult to cool in summer. Timetables stretched from early morning into the evening, with long gaps that left pupils stranded in school buildings without adequate supervision or food.

France’s public secondary schools have fewer teachers than they did in 2008, despite having roughly 250,000 more pupils. More than 70 per cent of classes in public general and technical schools have more than 30 pupils, while one in five has more than 35. Long absences without replacement have increased sharply, particularly in the Créteil and Versailles regions.

Buildings tell the same story. The average French lycée is more than six decades old. Vocational schools are older still. Only a small proportion of secondary-school buildings were built or substantially renovated in the past academic year.

The problems are not evenly distributed. In Seine-Saint-Denis, where the movement first took hold, the poverty rate is close to 30 per cent, almost twice the national metropolitan average.

France’s republican school system promises that a child’s future should not be determined by family wealth, religion or geography.

Yet pupils in the poorest areas are often asked to accept the largest classes, the oldest buildings and the most unstable supply of teachers.

The students understand the contradiction. They are not necessarily demanding a new ideology, but that the Republic honour its existing one.

The struggle over order

The protests have also produced real violence, and some schools have been damaged or ransacked. Teachers and headteachers have been threatened or injured. Incidents have been reported in Bayonne, Toulouse, Saint-Chamond, Poitiers and Saint-Étienne. In one case, a fire spread to a teacher’s car. In another, a school cafeteria was damaged.

The Education Ministry has estimated the cost of repairs at about €30 million and warned that thousands of pupils could lose teaching time.

The state’s authority cannot survive if school staff are attacked and schools become targets.

Nor is the idea that French schools are becoming unsafe entirely invented. Official surveys show substantial levels of intimidation, defiance and verbal abuse.

Many teachers report that pupils challenge their authority or mock their work. A smaller but serious minority report threats, harassment or physical assault. At the same time, the latest official data does not support the claim that French schools are simply descending into generalised violence. Most staff say they feel respected by pupils and safe inside their schools. The number of recorded serious incidents per 1,000 pupils fell slightly in the latest year.

The memory of Samuel Paty hangs over this debate. Paty was murdered in 2020 after being targeted by an Islamist extremist for showing caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of expression.

Dominique Bernard, another teacher, was murdered in 2023 by a former pupil in a terrorist attack. France’s schools have since become the place where arguments about secularism, religion, free speech and state authority collide with particular force.

The figures recorded during the first national commemoration of Paty showed the scale of the challenge. Hundreds of pupils were reported for provocations, refusal to participate, threats or expressions of support for terrorism. That episode should not be used to label the current movement as Islamist, most of the present protests concern staffing, buildings, timetables and inequality.

But the Paty legacy does expose a larger question: how can teachers exercise authority in an open society when the state has not reliably protected them?

The deployment of riot police has opened another dispute over how the state exercises its authority.

Images of tear gas and riot police confronting teenagers have travelled quickly through France and abroad. In Saint-Denis, the mayor, Bally Bagayoko, was filmed facing police lines while trying to shield young people. In Lens, a 15-year-old lost a hand during an incident involving a police grenade. In the Paris region, a police officer has been placed under investigation after a teenager was seriously injured. By 9 October, more than 200 pupils and over 800 police officers or gendarmes had reportedly been injured,

while more than 6,800 people had been placed in police custody, 86 per cent of them minors.

The police have a duty to prevent arson, protect school staff and stop attacks on public buildings.

They also have a duty to use force lawfully and proportionately. Student violence does not excuse unlawful policing. Alleged police misconduct does not erase the violence committed by protesters.

The state has run out of easy answers

The government has now conceded that the grievances are legitimate. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu has promised rapid action on teacher replacement, school buildings, timetables and Parcoursup. The Education Ministry has said it is contacting approximately 3,000 qualified teachers who could be sent to schools facing shortages.

That is a useful emergency measure, but it os not the same as solving the recruitment crisis. The government’s plan may demonstrate political responsiveness while leaving the structural weakness untouched. Ministers have recognised the problem, but recognition is cheaper than delivery.

The same tension is visible in the education budget. The government presents a 2027 allocation of roughly €64 billion, excluding pensions, compared with €48.8 billion in 2017.

Yet wider education spending barely increased in real terms last year. Inflation, salaries, energy costs, demographic change and the maintenance of old buildings consume money before it reaches the classroom.

France can still finance its debt, but the government has far less room to finance new promises.The European Central Bank has not judged that emergency intervention is necessary. But the country is in a politically dangerous financial position.

Public debt reached about 119 per cent of GDP at the end of the second quarter.

The government is working with a deficit of roughly 5.4 per cent of GDP this year, while annual interest costs are projected to rise from about €79 billion to more than €91 billion.

The ten-year borrowing rate has approached 5 per cent, its highest level in decades. Each rise makes the government’s promised concessions harder to fund. It means that markets are becoming less willing to treat French promises as costless.

The government therefore faces a narrow corridor. It must invest more in the services that citizens believe are collapsing while convincing creditors that public spending will eventually be brought under control. It must punish destruction without allowing the police response to define the entire crisis. It must restore authority in schools without turning schools into extensions of the security state.

There is no painless solution.

The government’s online consultation gives pupils a formal channel and produces a more precise map of their concerns. But consultation can become a substitute for decision. Students have already spent years being consulted about problems that remained visible afterwards.

France’s crisis is not simply a crisis of youth. It is a crisis of state capacity.

The young people on the streets are not all representative of the country’s lycéens. The movement is uneven, sometimes confused and occasionally violent.

It has not produced a coherent national programme. But it has revealed a common experience across very different schools: the sense that institutions ask for obedience while failing to provide the conditions in which obedience can appear reasonable.

France’s ability to sustain long-term European security commitments, including support for Ukraine, depends partly on whether it can rebuild domestic authority and fiscal credibility.

Charlotte Guillou-Clerc,

Journalist, France

The Africa Forward summit was presented by Paris as evidence of a renewed relationship based on investment, innovation and joint decision-making rather than the old French pré carré, or privileged sphere of influence.

Between 2022 and 2025, French forces withdrew from Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and handed back permanent bases in Chad, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire and Gabon. Djibouti is now the main exception .

It is easy to read that sequence as a simple exchange of powers: France leaves, Russia moves in. In the central Sahel, the Russian advance is real.

But France has not disappeared from Africa, and Russia has not replaced it as a complete economic or diplomatic partner. Paris is already rebuilding military cooperation in a different form, including discreet deployments in Benin, renewed discussions with Chad and a new defence relationship with Kenya.

The objective is no longer a chain of large permanent bases, but smaller arrangements built around requests from individual governments.

How France began to lose Africa

When France launched Operation Serval in Mali in 2013, its immediate military objective was clear: stop jihadist forces advancing towards the south of the country.

Serval was followed by Barkhane, a much larger regional counterterrorism operation that kept thousands of French troops across the Sahel for years.

France became not merely one foreign partner among others but the most visible external actor responsible for security.

That visibility eventually became a liability.

Jihadist violence continued to spread through Mali and into Burkina Faso and Niger. French forces could kill commanders and disrupt armed groups, but they could not repair weak institutions, local conflicts, corruption or the lack of state authority across enormous territories.

The military relationship also sat on top of older grievances. French interventions after independence, support for authoritarian governments, the CFA franc, restrictive visa policies and the dense political networks associated with Françafrique had already made the relationship unusually sensitive.

France had allowed its African policy to be excessively militarised, while its attempts to redefine the relationship came too late to prevent the security crisis from dominating it.

The coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger gave this frustration a political vehicle. Their new military leaders made sovereignty central to their legitimacy and presented the removal of French troops as evidence that the old hierarchy was ending. Turning away from Paris was therefore useful domestically as well as diplomatically.

Russian information campaigns amplified anti-French narratives, sometimes aggressively.

But Moscow did not invent the grievances on which they relied.

France's own Senate acknowledged in 2025 that the deterioration of its image reflected a genuine loss of influence and a challenge to its status as a privileged interlocutor, even if some anti-French narratives were manipulated from outside.

What Russia is betting on

France's economic position has weakened over time, particularly as China, Türkiye, Gulf states and others have expanded. But it remains substantial.

A 2025 French Senate report found France was still one of sub-Saharan Africa's main suppliers and its second-largest foreign investor by accumulated direct investment. Thousands of French companies remain active across the continent.

In several Sahel states, Moscow has concentrated its offer around the institutions closest to political power: armed forces, military training, intelligence, weapons and regime security.

Russian instructors arrived in Niger after the military authorities broke with Western security partners.

In Mali, Wagner fighters operated alongside the army before being replaced by Africa Corps, now much more directly connected to Russia's Defence Ministry.

Burkina Faso has also developed Russian military and security cooperation.

For military governments, this is a different kind of partnership from the European model.

Russia's relationships in the region have generally been transactional, centred on security assistance and political survival, while making fewer public demands over democratic transition or governance.

That does not mean African leaders have simply exchanged dependence on France for obedience to Moscow. They have made choices they consider useful, often while simultaneously cultivating Türkiye, China, Gulf countries, the United States or European states.

A company investing in telecommunications or infrastructure may matter enormously to an economy.

A foreign actor training presidential guards, supplying weapons or working alongside the national intelligence service can matter more immediately to the survival of a government.

The transformation from Wagner to Africa Corps has made the relationship even more explicit. Wagner gave Moscow some plausible distance from operations committed by a nominally private organisation.

Africa Corps is is tied much more directly to the Russian state. That gives the Kremlin greater control, but it also makes it harder to separate Moscow from what happens on the ground.

Russian strategy in Africa

Mali was supposed to demonstrate the superiority of the new security partnership.

The junta expelled its old Western partners, brought in Russian forces and promised a more sovereign approach to defeating jihadist and separatist groups. Russian-backed forces did help Bamako retake Kidal in 2023, an important symbolic victory.

In April 2026, jihadist and Tuareg forces launched coordinated attacks across the country, including against Bamako and strategic sites in the north and centre.

Further attacks followed during the summer. In September, sources cited by Reuters said more than 100 Malian soldiers had been killed in a single assault in Dioura, while another attack targeted the airport at Sévaré, where Russian personnel were also present.

Africa Corps has not solved the problem that eventually consumed France's presence in Mali: military operations can weaken armed groups without creating a functioning political and security order.

The circumstances are different. France operated as part of a much larger international architecture involving European forces, the United Nations and regional partners.

The Malian junta deliberately dismantled much of that framework and replaced it with a far narrower Russian partnership. Before the coup, roughly 20,000 international and regional personnel were deployed in Mali; the current Russian contingent is estimated at between 1,000 and 2,500.

There are also serious allegations of abuses by both Malian forces and their Russian partners. Human Rights Watch accused Africa Corps of carrying out an indiscriminate airstrike that killed civilians in June, while other monitoring organisations have linked violence against civilians to the worsening insurgency.

For Moscow, this creates a problem France knows well.

The more a foreign power presents itself as the partner capable of delivering security, the harder it becomes to treat continuing insecurity as somebody else's failure. Russia's advantage in the Sahel is therefore real but not irreversible.

It is also highly uneven across Africa.

Russia's African strategy since 2022 has been shaped increasingly by the consequences of its war against Ukraine.

Russia has sought more diplomatic partners, economic relationships and security footholds while trying to reduce the effect of Western isolation.

Russia presents itself as an opponent of Western domination and frequently draws on the Soviet Union's support for anti-colonial movements. Its invasion and occupation of Ukrainian territory sit awkwardly with that image.

But pointing out the contradiction does not automatically neutralise it. Where European governments are remembered through colonial rule, military interventions or unequal political relationships, arguments about Western double standards can still resonate.

The connection with the war is no longer only diplomatic. Ukraine said in February that more than 1,700 citizens of African countries were serving in Russia's armed forces, many recruited through deceptive schemes.

New opportunities for Ukraine in Africa 

Ukraine's diplomatic presence on the continent was thin when the full-scale invasion began. That has changed quickly.

Eight new Ukrainian embassies have opened in Africa in recent years, bringing the total number of diplomatic missions to 18, with further expansion planned.

Kyiv has also begun defining its African policy around trade, agriculture, technology, education, defence cooperation and food security rather than treating relations primarily as a search for votes at the United Nations.

That change reflects the same reality France has been forced to confront: African governments don’t not want to be treated primarily through somebody else's geopolitical priorities.

France has finally begun adapting to that environment as well. The Nairobi summit in May was deliberately built around economic investment, private capital, technology and a partnership co-hosted by an African government rather than another France-led summit in Paris. The fact that Macron chose Kenya also reflected a broader attempt to build relationships beyond France's former colonial sphere.

That shift is relevant to Ukraine because French and Ukrainian interests overlap without being identical. Both countries have reasons to limit Russia's ability to turn military partnerships into wider diplomatic influence. But Ukraine does not carry France's colonial history, and France cannot erase it simply by changing the language of its partnerships.

The collapse of the old French model therefore did more than create an opening for Russia. It demonstrated the limits of a relationship in which an outside power becomes too closely associated with the security and political choices of another state.

Mali suggests it may now be learning the other half of it. As Russia becomes more closely tied to governments and security forces, continued instability is becoming harder to separate from the Russian presence itself.

Charlotte Guillou-Clerc,

Journalist (France)

The solution they’ve arrived at is a win-win for everyone concerned – Ukraine, the Hungarian government, the Hungarian minority and the European Union.

Ukraine has taken the first step under the agreement: introducing a draft amendment, agreed on with the Hungarians and key political players, to the legislation on education in parliament. Even MPs known for their caution on minority issues, such as Volodymyr Viatrovych of the European Solidarity party, are prepared to vote in favour of these changes.

Once the law is passed, Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar will be able to claim that he has won and has helped the Hungarian minority in Ukraine – an outcome his predecessor Viktor Orbán was unable to achieve.

And Ukraine will gain something no less important. Budapest is set to unblock two clusters in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations on 13 October. Kyiv, Brussels and Budapest will have to stick to a fairly demanding schedule to meet that deadline.

This agreement does not resolve all the problems in the countries’ bilateral relations.

There is very little trust between Ukraine and Hungary, and the agreement underscores this.

It’s hoped that the current plan, if successful, will mark the beginning of a long-term solution to the crisis. Kyiv has stated that it expects to conclude further agreements with Hungary and wants EU accession negotiations to be fully open by the end of 2026.

However, this agreement leaves Orbán’s pro-Russian party on the losing side, so it cannot be ruled out that attempts may be made to derail the agreement between the Ukrainian and Hungarian governments.

How the Hungarian government changed its stance on Ukraine

Just two weeks ago the conflict was at its peak. In mid-September, Hungary refused to attend the Carpathian Eight summit. Instead, it began escalating the diplomatic conflict, openly demonstrating its disrespect for Ukraine.

The prime minister personally contributed to the bridge-burning.

And the summit wasn't the only issue. Péter Magyar announced that he was terminating an agreement between Ukraine's Naftogaz and Hungary's MOL to build oil storage facilities, a business deal that would have provided a new source of revenue for Hungary and greater fuel supply stability for Ukraine. Magyar gave no reason for terminating the agreement.

Why did Magyar do this? The context is important.

The Hungarian prime minister's anti-Ukraine remarks were made during a parliamentary session in response to renewed accusations from Orbán's party that the government had become "too pro-Ukrainian". It wasn’t the first time Magyar has been thrown off balance by such unfounded allegations.

But it wasn’t long before the Hungarian authorities realised they had gone too far.

Not all of Magyar's voters support his attacks on Ukraine, and Western countries are also becoming increasingly concerned about them. So just a few days later, Budapest began looking for ways to reopen dialogue with Kyiv.

The turning point came on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, sources say.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán met with her Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, and the two ministers agreed to keep the negotiations quiet for a while. Only now, as the implementation of the Kyiv-Budapest agreement has entered its final stages, has Sybiha acknowledged those talks.

Meanwhile, despite the public crisis, Anita Orbán suddenly gave an interview to Index, a Hungarian opposition outlet sympathetic to Viktor Orbán, in which she spoke of positive developments on the national minorities issue, without going into detail.

Behind-the-scenes negotiations were also taking place between Anita Orbán and Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister for European Integration, Vsevolod Chentsov.

"Chentsov is talking to Anita so much these days that he's probably fluent in Hungarian by now," one of European Pravda's sources joked.

In a comment to European Pravda, Chentsov acknowledged the negotiations and spoke of the ongoing efforts to rebuild relations.

"We seek to build trust with Hungary. To achieve this, concrete practical steps are needed from both sides," he explained.

An action plan without a shred of trust

The details of the agreement, which has been obtained by European Pravda, clearly demonstrate the lack of trust between the two countries.

Each side is expected to fulfil an existing commitment and, in return, secure a diplomatic victory.

Ukraine has committed to adopting amendments to the Law On Education, which is nothing new – it’s one of the official benchmarks in the EU accession process. Hungary has committed to the opening of two more clusters in Ukraine's EU accession negotiations. This, too, is not a new commitment on Hungary's part: it promised to lift its veto back in June but did not do so.

Because of the lack of trust, however, Hungary and Ukraine have devised a framework in which the commitments are fulfilled in parallel, leaving each side the option of halting the process if the other breaks its promise.

Ukraine has taken the first public step under the agreement: a draft bill has been submitted to parliament. It was jointly drafted by the government and MPs and agreed on with minority communities.

Hungary is expected to take the next step.

On 6 October, at a meeting of COELA (the EU's Working Party on Enlargement) in Brussels, Hungary will agree to the Irish presidency sending Ukraine a letter requesting it to submit its negotiating positions to the EU for Clusters 2 and 3 (Internal Market and Competitiveness and Inclusive Growth).

This may sound like a highly technical decision, but it is this bureaucratic step that Hungary has been vetoing until now, blocking Ukraine's accession progress.

The subsequent technical procedures will then follow step by step, with the process expected to conclude on the afternoon of 13 October, when an Intergovernmental Conference will take place in Luxembourg.

Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada will have to convene an extraordinary session on 12 October to meet this deadline and fast-track the adoption of the amendments to the Law On Education.

"This will make it possible to open the second and third clusters ahead of the EU Summit on 15 October," Chentsov said. "Among other things, the summit will focus on enlargement. So opening the clusters for Ukraine and Moldova will send a strong signal that both the EU and the candidate countries take their commitments seriously."

For this to happen, the process will need to go ahead without a hitch. Parliamentary sources say this is achievable.

Amendments with no detriment to Ukraine

The substance of the draft bill is not new. Even under Orbán the discussions had focused on targeted amendments to Ukraine’s education legislation to address concerns raised by representatives of the Hungarian and Romanian minorities.

The Foreign Ministry emphasises that this cannot be called a "Hungarian law".

"It will apply not only to the Hungarian minority, but to all minorities living in Ukraine," Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha stresses. There is one exception: the Russian language will not be covered.

Since Hungary has advocated for these provisions more vigorously than other EU member states, the negotiations have been conducted primarily with Budapest.

The main amendment is the introduction of national minority school status. Mykyta Poturaiev, co-author of the bill and chair of the Verkhovna Rada's Committee on Humanitarian and Information Policy, says there were discussions with Hungarian representatives over specific provisions during the drafting process, and compromises were reached on all of them.

The key question was at what point a school would qualify for national minority school status. "We reached an agreement with our Hungarian partners that the threshold would be 50% plus one student. However, if the number of students receiving Hungarian-medium education subsequently goes down, that won’t mean the school's status will be automatically revoked," the MP explains.

Another important provision for Hungarians, to which there have been no objections from the outset, is the explicit legal right of children to speak their own language at break time and during extracurricular activities.

There is also a fundamental innovation unrelated to Hungary.

There are separate provisions on the possibility of establishing schools for indigenous peoples – namely Crimean Tatar schools. The requirements here are considerably more flexible: just one class taught in an indigenous language is sufficient.

Poturaiev is confident the bill will receive enough votes.

"The bill will pass in the plenary chamber," he assured European Pravda.

The willingness of other parliamentary groups to support the bill is an encouraging sign. This is confirmed by Volodymyr Viatrovych, who has been a consistent advocate for legislative protection for the Ukrainian language and was involved in revising the draft.

"We’ve eliminated the main risks. The bill in its current form poses no danger, so I plan to vote in favour of it," he said.

There are also discussions about adopting, in the first reading, previously registered bills aimed at strengthening protection for the Ukrainian language alongside the amendments to the Law On Education. However, no decision has been made on this yet.

What’s next?

Officials in Kyiv believe that successfully implementing the agreement will make it possible to emerge from the prolonged crisis in Ukrainian-Hungarian relations and change the approach to bilateral ties.

Budapest’s official position has indeed shifted over the past couple of weeks. The Hungarian government has publicly thanked Kyiv for submitting the draft bill.

It’s hoped that this will pave the way for a meeting between the leaders of the two countries, which Magyar has been avoiding. Now the Hungarian prime minister will be able to tell his voters that he has achieved something in relations with Ukraine that Orbán failed to deliver.

Resolving the most urgent issue for national minorities will also allow the leaders to focus on other, less contentious matters in bilateral relations.

It’s hoped that a Zelenskyy-Magyar meeting will also lead to Hungary lifting its veto on the final two clusters in Ukraine's EU accession negotiations.

"We are fulfilling our commitments, and this should also be reflected in progress in the accession negotiations," said Chentsov, adding: "We expect the remaining clusters to be opened by the end of the year."

Sergiy Sydorenko

Editor, European Pravda

But right now, this simply cannot be done. It is already late September 2026, and Ukraine still has no law under which the selection could begin.

Without a new HQCJ composition, the entire judicial reform could come to a standstill, stalling Ukraine’s EU accession process, in which the justice sector is a priority. 

Yet for the EU, what matters is not the title of the law but its content.

On 25 September, the Venice Commission, together with the Council of Europe's Directorate General of Human Rights and the Rule of Law, published an urgent opinion on government draft law No. 16018-1 on the selection of members of the HQCJ and the High Council of Justice (HCJ). The key message is simple: the return of international experts to the selection process is welcome, but in its current form, the draft law turns it into a mere formality.

According to the Commission, the government’s version "would preserve the form but not the substance" of what Ukraine’s European integration commitments entail.

This means the draft law needs substantial revision. Now it is up to the government and the Verkhovna Rada to do this honestly and on time.

How Ukraine wasted a year

On 1 June 2025, the term of the first Selection Commission, which selected HQCJ members, came to an end. It consisted of six members: three judges or retired judges delegated by the Council of Judges and three experts nominated by international organisations. In 2023, this mechanism helped to form the sitting HQCJ.

Under current legislation, future compositions will be formed exclusively by national bodies, without international experts. But the question is whether they can select new HQCJ members fairly, or whether they will drag the entire judicial reform back to corporatism and the protection of "their own", just like previous HQCJ compositions.  

Back on 18 June 2025, Anastasiia Radina, Chair of the Verkhovna Rada's Anti-Corruption Committee, together with other MPs, registered draft law No. 13382, which would extend the participation of international experts in the HQCJ selection process. Nearly 90 civil society organisations called for keeping international experts on the selection commissions. Yet the Verkhovna Rada never considered the draft law. 

In December 2025, the European Union included the return of international experts to the HQCJ selection process in the list of 10 priority reforms, also known as the Kachka–Kos plan.

Seven months passed, and absolutely nothing changed.

To give the reform an additional push, this summer the EU also included it in the Ukraine Facility plan. Adopting a law that brings international experts back into the HQCJ selection process became a financial indicator worth around €130 million. 

Only on 10 July 2026 did then-Deputy Prime Minister Taras Kachka send the government's draft law to the Venice Commission, without first showing it to the public or MPs. In fact, it was an attempt to bypass public discussion and come to parliament with a text supposedly already "agreed upon with Europe" – and therefore not open to fundamental changes. 

But the plan failed. 

The Venice Commission explicitly stated that the legislative process does not "adhere to good lawmaking standards" and that urgency does not negate the obligation to conduct consultations, particularly with civil society.

What the Venice Commission concluded

Let’s start with the good news.

The Commission supported a key element of the draft law: entrusting the 2027 renewal of the High Qualification Commission of Judges (HQCJ) to a selection commission, which must again include international members. The Venice Commission once again emphasised that involving international experts in this way does not infringe on national sovereignty and that all necessary safeguards are already provided for in Ukrainian legislation.

Most importantly, however, the Venice Commission explained that the temporary character of international participation is defined by "the task for which it was established and not by a fixed date".

In other words, the expiry of the statutory term is not, in itself, a reason to exclude international experts. First, Ukraine must carry out proper reform of the national bodies that will later take over the selection of HQCJ members, and only then return to the standard procedure without international participation. 

At the same time, the Venice Commission notes that the current draft law requires substantial revision. 

Key concerns:

• The provision requiring the commission to include at least one Ukrainian citizen under the international partners’ quota weakens the mechanism. The inclusion of Ukrainian citizens should be an option for international organisations, not a requirement. 

• The same voting rules should apply to all decisions concerning candidates, securing the role of the international members. The Venice Commission proposes that decisions on integrity, competence, and the final list require 4 votes, including at least 2 from international members. 

• The provision allowing Ukrainian bodies to replace international members must be removed. This is indeed a rather peculiar provision: if partners do not nominate candidates to the commission, the quota may be filled instead by the Council of Prosecutors, the Bar Council, and the National Academy of Legal Sciences – unreformed Ukrainian bodies that lack the trust of both the public and international partners. The Venice Commission considers this unacceptable and proposes that, should such a situation arise, the nomination period for international organisations be extended or, as a last resort, that the right to nominate be transferred to a neutral body, though it does not specify which one.

• The selection commission should operate not for a fixed two-year term, but until it fulfils its task (forming the new HQCJ). This would serve as a safeguard against a situation in which Ukraine once again finds itself without a functioning selection commission and unprepared to form the HQCJ on its own. At the same time, the selection process must be announced at least six months before the end of the term, while sitting HQCJ members should remain in office until their successors are appointed. 

• Another issue is the selection commission’s dependence on the HCJ Secretariat. The government proposes that the Secretariat support the commission’s work, while international members would, in fact, be allowed to engage only interpreters, without the assistants who previously helped collect and analyse information about candidates. The Venice Commission stresses that candidates’ integrity cannot be properly assessed without independent analytical capacity. The commission therefore needs analytical support accountable only to it, while the HCJ Secretariat should provide only technical and logistical assistance.

The Venice Commission’s conclusion should be quoted almost word for word.

The Venice Commission believes that each of these changes, taken separately, "reduces one of the safeguards of the mechanism which produced the HQCJ in 2023." Taken together, all these provisions would "shift control over the procedure towards the appointing authority (the HCJ – ed.)", reducing the participation of international experts to a purely nominal role.

"Box-ticking" or reform?

The Ukrainian authorities are becoming increasingly adept at reporting on reforms, while at the same time trying to undermine their essence and retain leverage over appointments to key judicial governance bodies.

The government’s draft law clearly illustrates this approach: international experts are nominally present, but the selection process is controlled.

The Venice Commission explicitly states that Kyiv is trying to "sell" form without substance.

After all, the goal of the reform is not simply to have international experts at the table. The goal is to ensure that independent HQCJ members are selected on the basis of genuine criteria of integrity and professionalism, without external interference.

Now the Verkhovna Rada has two options. The first is to ignore the substantive criticism and rush the text through almost unchanged, claiming there is "no time to waste" because the country needs the money tied to the Ukraine Facility indicator. Ukraine would get HQCJ built for hand-picking judges, and a failed benchmark in its EU accession talks.

The second is to openly work through the Venice Commission's recommendations with civil society and international partners, and then either submit a new draft law or adopt the necessary amendments to those already registered. That is harder, of course, but only then will the return of international experts make sense.

Manual control over judges and the bodies that select and dismiss them is a relic incompatible with EU membership. Those who cling to old schemes are doomed to fail.

The only question is how much time Ukraine will lose before that happens, and whether the delay will cost us progress towards our long-awaited EU accession.

Tetiana Shevchuk, lawyer at NGO Anti-Corruption Action Centre

Karyna Penska, advocacy manager at the DEJURE Foundation

Kateryna Butko, Head of All-Ukrainian Association "Automaidan"

A special investment mechanism for mineral resource use

Ukraine has substantial oil and gas resources, alongside deposits of minerals that are critical to strategic industries. Yet the presence of natural resources does not automatically translate into economic value. They provide the potential for growth, which can only be realised when combined with capital, technological and managerial expertise, and investors willing to take on geological, operational and, in today's reality, military risks. One of the most effective ways to bring these factors together is a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA).

A PSA is a specialised investment mechanism for the development and extraction of mineral resources. It brings together state resources and private capital, technology and expertise, while placing a significant share of the investment risk on the private investor.

At its core, a PSA is based on a clear division of roles, responsibilities and risks: the state provides access to the resource, and the investor brings capital, technology and management expertise. The value generated by production is then shared between the parties on mutually agreed terms set out in the agreement.

For the state, a PSA makes it possible to attract private investment and develop areas that might otherwise remain untapped – particularly complex or poorly explored sites that require extensive geological exploration and offer no guarantee of success. Under a PSA, the state does not have to finance the work with state funds. The investor assumes the geological and operational risks. In return, the state gains increased production, budget revenues and regional development, and retains control over the work programme.

For the investor, a PSA provides access to the resource base under predictable terms. The long-term nature of these projects makes stability a key consideration for investors: the agreement sets out the production-sharing model, the applicable legislation, the obligations of both parties and the terms governing the investor's operations for the entire duration of the agreement, which can be up to 50 years. It also sets out how the returns are distributed: if the project succeeds, most of the production initially goes towards recovering the investor's costs, and the remaining profit is then shared between the investor and the state.

A PSA therefore differs fundamentally from a model in which an investor merely obtains a special licence to use mineral resources. It is a long-term investment contract that establishes the rules governing the relationship between the state and the investor throughout the project lifecycle, from geological exploration to commercial production and the distribution of the resulting production.

This is precisely why the PSA mechanism makes it possible to develop projects that would not be economically viable under other models and attract capital to areas where the risks would be too high for investors under conventional models.

PSAs in Ukraine: a decade without significant results

Ukraine's first two PSAs were concluded in 2013, for the Yuzivska and Oleska blocks. The next major push came in 2019, when large-scale tenders were held, and 11 additional PSAs were subsequently concluded in 2020-2021.

As of September 2026, commercial production under Ukraine's PSA programme is limited to a single project – the Uhnivska area. Some projects remain at the geological exploration stage or are resuming operations, but a significant proportion are still suspended due to the war and other factors.

Under the 11 agreements signed in 2020-2021, total minimum investment commitments exceed US$500 million. However, according to open-source data, only about 10% of these commitments have been fulfilled.

The fact that only one of the 13 PSA projects has reached commercial production highlights the scale of the challenge. 

Yet it also shows that the mechanism is viable and can deliver results under current conditions when managed effectively.

The implementation of these projects depends on a range of factors: geological data, seismic surveys, drilling, access to land, environmental procedures, infrastructure, financing, engagement with state authorities and the investor's ability to manage a large and complex project.

In the face of military risks, this requires strong management capabilities – and it can ultimately determine the outcome.

It is telling that since 2022, there have been no established approaches to organising production activities in large mineral resource projects under martial law. As a result, some PSA projects are seeing their terms reviewed, their investor structure changed, or their preparatory period extended.

The scale of this unrealised potential is difficult to quantify precisely, but a rough estimate is possible. The total area of the PSA blocks exceeds 20,000 sq km, and all of them are located in regions with known oil and gas resources. Given the average density of deposits in these areas – one per 200-400 sq km – the successful implementation of the work programmes could lead to the discovery of several dozen new oil and gas fields. This is only an indicative estimate and does not account for the probability of geological success. Even partial achievement of this potential, however, would be significant for Ukraine's economy and energy security.

Furthermore, companies holding rights to use mineral resources continue to conduct production activities at their existing fields.

What comes next?

We believe the question of whether work under PSAs can proceed today is not about whether there is a military risk. That is already clear. The real question is whether this risk makes a project economically and operationally unviable, or merely makes it more complex and costly to implement.

In wartime, the decision to proceed with a PSA should not come down to a simple "safe/unsafe" choice. The vast majority of oil and gas assets in frontline regions continue to operate, showing that production remains possible even at a high level of risk. The key question, therefore, is not just the level of the military threat, but also whether the investor can adapt the project model, secure financing and manage the increased operational complexity effectively.

The postponement or suspension of a PSA project does not necessarily mean that it is economically or operationally unviable. It may instead reflect higher capital costs, greater management complexity and a reluctance to take on additional execution risks and responsibilities under new and more challenging conditions.

Against the backdrop of the unfolding crisis in the global energy market, reviving suspended PSA projects and developing new ones in Ukraine could be pivotal to securing the country's long-term energy resilience.

It is clear that, in the context of the war and Ukraine's future recovery, the country needs mechanisms to attract long-term private capital and investors willing to take on project risks. This is where PSAs can play a much greater role:

• accelerating the development of Ukraine's own resource base and strengthening the country's energy security
• attracting international investors to Ukraine's mineral resource sector
• expanding exploration and extraction to other minerals of strategic importance
• developing Ukraine's economic potential and increasing the local availability of skilled labour and technical expertise
• integrating Ukraine's resource base with investment capital, processing technologies and global supply chains to create opportunities for new industrial projects
• laying the foundations for the development of Ukraine's investment ecosystem, in cooperation with private capital, international financial institutions and mechanisms for insuring against military and political risks.

According to Andrii Okhotnikov, the main challenge for Ukraine today is execution. Obtaining rights to a plot of land is only the starting point. The geological potential must then be turned into a tangible project, from due diligence and concept development through to drilling, infrastructure construction and the start of commercial production.

Powerhouse and Andrii Okhotnikov: from PSA strategy to implementation and production in wartime conditions

This is where professional PSA management becomes essential. Powerhouse has experience in complex projects across mineral resource use, energy and industry, combining strategic, financial, operational and project expertise.

Founded and led by Andrii Okhotnikov, Powerhouse supports major mineral resource and energy projects in Ukraine. We view a PSA not simply as a legal document, but as a full-scale investment project that requires professional management at every stage of its lifecycle. Powerhouse provides comprehensive, end-to-end project support:

For Ukraine to realise its industrial potential, it is critical to move from treating minerals simply as a resource to viewing them as an investment asset and a driver of value creation. PSAs provide a mechanism to make this shift and strengthen Ukraine's long-term energy sustainability.

Powerhouse, led by Andrii Okhotnikov, supports investors throughout the project lifecycle, from valuing assets and structuring deals to implementing exploration and production projects and protecting their interests in dealings with the state and project partners.

Equally significant was the fact that the political and legal debates surrounding the use of frozen assets – ongoing throughout the previous year – appeared to have hit a wall.

Resistance from certain EU member states prevented the adoption of radical decisions on the use of frozen assets, measures that, at least at certain stages, would have required unanimous approval.

However, as autumn approaches, the issue of frozen assets is once again moving to the forefront of the agenda. Defense funding shortfalls for this year and next necessitate securing an amount of capital comparable to the loan already allocated. European Pravda has previously reported on the ideas being discussed within the EU.

At the same time, a practical proposal on the transfer of Russian assets to Ukraine has emerged from Strasbourg – specifically from the Council of Europe (CoE). The proposal suggests transferring Russian funds to Kyiv on the basis of a court ruling, namely one from the European Court of Human Rights.

Here, we are explaining the details of this initiative.

What the Council of Europe can do

From the very beginning of Russian aggression, the Council of Europe has taken a firm pro-Ukrainian stance: in addition to expelling Russia from the organisation, it has supported international efforts to hold the aggressor accountable. It was under the auspices of the Council of Europe that the Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression was established, and the organisation consistently condemns Russian crimes in Ukraine.

This international organisation has been raising the issue of reparations for Ukraine and the confiscation of Russian assets almost since the onset of Russian aggression. As early as April 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) called for assets belonging to sanctioned Russian citizens – sanctioned due to their responsibility for the aggression against Ukraine – to be confiscated and used to compensate Ukraine and its citizens for damages caused by the Russian Federation's war.

Furthermore, the Register of Damage for Ukraine was established and the agreement to create the International Compensation Commission was signed under the auspices of the Council of Europe; these are two key elements of the international compensation mechanism that Ukraine has been working to establish since May 2022.

However, the specific issue of confiscating Russian sovereign assets remained outside the Council's operational focus for a long time – likely because the organisation lacked the necessary leverage in this area.

The organisation is involved neither in the custody of Russian funds (it is worth recalling that the majority of the Russian Central Bank's assets are held in Belgium at the Euroclear depository) nor in decisions regarding their legal status. Council of Europe bodies can only issue non-binding recommendations in this regard – something they have done at times: in its resolutions, PACE has called on states to cooperate on this matter and to adopt appropriate national legislation enabling confiscation.

However, in early September, the PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights approved a report calling for a more active role for the Council in the confiscation process.

What is the "Tony Vaughan report", and how will it help address the issue of Russian funds?

The report, which has made headlines, was prepared by Tony Vaughan, a PACE member from the United Kingdom.

This is not the first expert document addressing the potential confiscation of Russian assets; legal memoranda on this subject were previously prepared by a group of prominent lawyers – including Dapo Akande and Philippe Sands (the Akande Memorandum) – and by Philippa Webb for the European Commission's research service.

However, there has been no such document within the framework of the Council of Europe until now.

The core idea of Tony Vaughan's report is for member states to use Russian assets frozen within their jurisdictions to satisfy European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rulings on compensation – referred to as "just satisfaction" in the Court's terminology. This primarily concerns rulings in interstate cases between Ukraine and Russia, as well as other judgments for which Russia has failed to pay the awarded satisfaction.

To this end, he proposes either establishing a special Council of Europe trust fund to which these assets would be transferred, or implementing the relevant ECtHR rulings at the member-state level – a move that might require amending national laws or adopting a specific recommendation from the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers.

The idea of using Russian assets to enforce European Court of Human Rights judgments is not fundamentally new; it has been raised in previous years. However, this is the first time the issue has been formally considered by one of the Council of Europe's institutions.

What comes next, and is the idea realistic?

The Vaughan Report and the communication from the Council of Europe's Legal Committee have garnered media attention; however, the proposal itself is outlined in rather broad strokes and may serve merely as a starting point for discussion on the Council of Europe's role.

We must be realistic in our assessment, as this is certainly not yet a final decision.

Moreover, experts question the feasibility of using Russian assets to enforce ECtHR rulings. According to expert analysis, such an approach would require either political decisions by individual Council of Europe member states seeking to implement the rulings, amendments to the European Convention on Human Rights itself (unrealistic, given the need to ratify changes to this international treaty), or a specific decision by the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers.

Without this, it is unlikely that individual states – primarily Belgium and Luxembourg, which hold the lion's share of the Russian Central Bank's reserves within their jurisdictions – will take such action.

This stems not only from fear of the Kremlin's reaction but also from concern that such a practice could be extended to other cases, bypassing the established procedures associated with the European Convention on Human Rights.

However, if even some progress is made in this direction, it could act as an "icebreaker", paving the way for the use of Russian sovereign assets to provide compensation to Ukraine.

Currently, the compensation amounts awarded by the ECtHR are small relative to the total value of the assets. Yet the ECtHR has issued rulings involving billions – such as the €1.86 billion awarded in compensation to Yukos. However, on the major interstate cases against Russia before the Court – concerning violations during the annexation of Crimea, violations in Donbas since 2014, and the onset of the full-scale war – no decision on awarding satisfaction to Ukraine has yet been reached. Should a payment mechanism emerge, the Court might show greater boldness in awarding a specific sum.

It must be borne in mind, however, that the Court lacks jurisdiction over events occurring after 16 September 2022, the date Russia's membership in the Council of Europe definitively ceased.

That said, the likelihood of utilising these assets through the ECtHR appears slim

"The Council of Europe can certainly play a role in the matter of confiscating Russian assets. After all, at one time, no one believed that a tribunal for the crime of aggression would be established under its auspices," comments a co-author of the "Akande Memorandum" on this initiative.

Yet the decisions leading to this depend not merely on Strasbourg – where the Council of Europe is based – but primarily on Brussels. It is the European Union and its decisions that determine the fate of Russian assets; should initiatives to place these assets under direct EU jurisdiction be implemented, that role will only grow.

Ultimately, the fundamental problem remains unchanged: it is not a lack of legal instruments or arguments, but an absence of political will in key European capitals to make difficult decisions.

Ivan Horodyskyy,

Lawyer, Director of the Dnistrianskyi Center

This material was prepared with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation within the framework of the project Compensation4UA / Compensation for War Damages for Ukraine. Phase VI: International Compensation Mechanism for Ukraine – Challenges, Effectiveness, and Prospects for International Support.

Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar did not simply ignore the event.

It appears that while preparations were still underway, Budapest attempted to humiliate Kyiv and provoke a reaction, while Ukrainian officials tried to defuse the conflict.

Unfortunately, these events reflect Hungary's new policy.

A demonstrative contempt for Ukraine is at its centre.

The main tool of this policy remains the artificial crisis in relations that was created under former prime minister Viktor Orbán. While Magyar's government publicly declares its intention to restore good-neighbourly relations with Ukraine, it is actually cementing the problems that have built up over time.

Magyar's government policy is also punishing the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia, firstly by blocking their path towards EU membership, and secondly by creating obstacles to the passing of laws the minority needs.

The lack of political dialogue with Hungary means Kyiv has no realistic scenarios for resolving this crisis. The only hope is that European and US partners will be able to convince Magyar to change his policy.

Instead of thanks, a diplomatic slap in the face

Two weeks ago, experts, politicians and diplomats working on Ukrainian-Hungarian relations had an excellent reason to be optimistic.

The Ukrainian parliament became the first parliament in the world to officially condemn the repression of Hungarians during the Soviet era. This crime, known in Hungary as "málenkij robot" (from the Russian for "little work"), was committed after the end of World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarians, most of them civilians, were deported to the Soviet Union for forced labour. Tens of thousands never returned home, dying in camps, on the way, or in other circumstances.

Residents of Zakarpattia were also affected by these actions, so condemning the Soviet repression was an entirely logical step for the Ukrainian parliament.

The timing of the decision regarding "málenkij robot" was no accident. Ruslan Stefanchuk, speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, was preparing to visit Budapest and wanted to create a diplomatic bargaining chip that could help thaw relations with Ukraine's neighbour.

But no one could have imagined what Hungary's response would be.

The speaker of the Hungarian parliament, Ágnes Forsthoffer, refused to meet with her Ukrainian counterpart while he was in the country. And so did every other Hungarian official. A few days later, Stefanchuk happened to be in Budapest again on his way home from a G7 meeting, and once again, no one was available to meet him.

Despite these actions by his counterparts, the Ukrainian speaker decided not to escalate the conflict. In a comment to European Pravda, his office emphasised that they were continuing to work on arranging a meeting. However, they also pointed out that Forsthoffer herself had invited her Ukrainian counterpart, only to later refuse to meet with him.

Stefanchuk’s spokesperson Vadym Kolodiichuk told European Pravda: "The Ukrainian and Hungarian teams are actively working on arranging the first meeting between the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada and the Speaker of the National Assembly of Hungary, Ágnes Forsthoffer. We are grateful to the Hungarian side for their official invitation to visit Budapest. At the same time, we are ready to welcome Ágnes Forsthoffer in Kyiv or any other Ukrainian city, subject to mutual agreement."

Members of parliament who spoke with European Pravda off the record tended to be harsher in their assessments, describing the situation as a "slap in the face" from Budapest.

But what happened next is even more striking.

How Magyar is avoiding reaching agreements with Ukraine

A popular explanation in Budapest is that the two leaders, Zelenskyy and Magyar, should meet first.

European Pravda sources had also expressed hopes that the Hungarian prime minister would attend the Carpathian Initiative summit. The thinking was that this was why Forsthoffer, who has no authority over foreign policy, had been unwilling to meet.

These explanations are contrary to the rules of diplomacy. On the contrary, if a leaders’ meeting is to be successful, it needs to be prepared for in advance. The fundamental agreements are worked out first, and the leaders then meet to settle politically sensitive details. Given that decisions by the Verkhovna Rada will be required to resolve the crisis in relations with Hungary, a meeting between the parliamentary speakers would have been appropriate.

That said, Magyar does often act contrary to established rules and conventional logic.

But the main problem is that he isn’t just avoiding meetings with Ukraine.

The Carpathian Initiative summit provided a vivid example.

European Pravda is aware that negotiations with Budapest over Magyar’s attendance at the summit had been going on for quite some time. Several sources claim that only two days before the summit began, the Hungarian prime minister’s office had still not said whether he would be travelling to Ukraine. Then an upcoming trip to the Hungarian city of Pécs was announced on Magyar’s Facebook page that would have been impossible to fit in if he had been visiting Ukraine as scheduled.

All previous attempts to arrange a meeting also failed.

Since the beginning of the summer, Magyar has rejected numerous proposals from Kyiv for a meeting – in Budapest, Brussels, Lviv and elsewhere. Twice, Zelenskyy has caught up with Magyar in person at multilateral international events – the EU and NATO summits. Magyar promised to agree to a full-fledged meeting, but then nothing came of it.

This rather undermines Budapest’s official explanation that the speaker, Ágnes Forsthoffer, was reluctant to meet because she wanted to give priority to Magyar.

It looks more like Budapest is avoiding any political dialogue with Ukraine.

It also looks as if they are trying to humiliate the Ukrainian government.

Forsthoffer is generally not very active in foreign policy, and up until this week she had not held a single meeting with speakers of other countries’ parliaments in Budapest. So technically it could have been argued that that was the reason for her reluctance to meet with Stefanchuk, despite Ukraine’s gesture ahead of his visit.

But two days before the Carpathian summit, a signal came from Budapest: no, this had been a targeted refusal specifically aimed at Ukraine. To prove the point, the speaker of Moldova’s parliament, Igor Grosu, was invited to Budapest to meet with Forsthoffer.

Moldova is not a priority partner for Hungary. Inviting Grosu was apparently intended as a signal or even a slap in the face for Ukraine.

Hungary is the only EU member state that is advocating for Moldova and Ukraine to be decoupled as they progress towards EU membership. It has proposed several times that the EU open the next negotiating clusters for Moldova while freezing the process for Ukraine.

European Pravda sources say that Kyiv got the message.

A veto without conditions

The biggest problem is that Hungary is blocking EU membership for Ukraine without clearly stating what Kyiv needs to do for the veto to be lifted.

The blockade is just there, and no one knows how to bring it to an end.

That is precisely why meetings between senior officials – whether parliamentary speakers or heads of government – are necessary: so that the two sides can understand each other’s positions and find a way out of the crisis. Hungary is doing everything it can to prevent such a dialogue from taking place.

Moreover, even in the EU negotiations, Hungary avoids being specific about what it demands of Ukraine. All we hear is that Ukraine has to "show progress" in implementing agreements on minority rights. Yet we are currently on track for reviewing legislative changes according to a schedule that was agreed on with the Hungarians. For example, in September we submitted a draft on implementing the agreements in the field of education to the European Commission and the Hungarian side.

In other words, Ukraine is fulfilling its commitments, whereas Hungary, which promised back in June to unblock all the clusters, is breaking that promise.

The veto remains in place, just as it was under Orbán, with no explanations and no dialogue whatsoever.

That’s the most shocking part.

Last spring Hungary got rid of Viktor Orbán, who had been moving further into Russia’s orbit (while his foreign minister, Péter Szijjártó, was openly carrying out the Kremlin’s wishes and leaking information from closed EU meetings to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov).

Magyar, who replaced him, emphasises his opposition to Russia...

But when it comes to Ukraine, his actions often differ little from those of his predecessor.

The shadow of Orbán over the new government

What is Péter Magyar’s true objective? That question remains unanswered. The explanations offered by Hungarian politicians and diplomats do not seem convincing.

In Budapest they claim that Magyar is constrained by public opinion, which is largely negative towards Ukraine. It’s true that after years of Orbán’s propaganda machine, anti-Ukraine prejudices have become entrenched among many Hungarians, and it will take years to overcome them.

But that doesn’t explain the logic behind these actions. Is Magyar really planning to wait five, seven or even 10 years before the next negotiating clusters are opened? Or is this just a convenient excuse?

What’s more, Hungary has already enabled two clusters to be opened for Ukraine (Cluster 1 in June and Cluster 6 in July) without any political or reputational losses ensuing for the government – in fact Magyar’s approval ratings went up. Nor has this been a particularly noticeable topic in Hungary’s domestic political debates or a source of criticism within the country.

Ukraine has its own version of events, which was recently outlined by Heorhii Tykhyi, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. "Even after losing power, Orbán’s team continues to undermine the normalisation of relations between Hungary and Ukraine," he said.

Indeed, the Hungarian leadership may have changed, but Orbán’s people are still influential.

Hungary’s ambassador to the EU is still Bálint Ódor, who was appointed by openly pro-Russian minister Péter Szijjártó. So it’s not surprising that Hungary’s representation in Brussels should continue Orbán’s longstanding policy with respect to Ukraine: block, block and block. There have been no changes at the Hungarian embassy in Kyiv. Nor has the Hungarian Foreign Ministry replaced the diplomats responsible for Ukraine.

Despite this, Péter Magyar personally bears political responsibility for the course that has been set.

It was he who chose a policy that, in effect, aims to "punish" Hungarians in Ukraine.

You don’t need to be a Hungarian expert on Ukrainian affairs to understand that ostentatious slaps in the face and gestures of contempt towards the Ukrainian parliament is not going to help secure the adoption of the minority rights legislation that Ukraine is planning to approve as part of its pre-accession agreements.

And ultimately, how does it benefit the Hungarian minority in Zakarpattia if Péter Magyar continues to block Ukraine’s path towards EU membership?

How to resolve the crisis in relations

There is only one avenue of influence over Magyar that could realistically produce results: pressure from Western partners.

After Orbán, who was pretty much seen as "absolute evil", Péter Magyar was initially viewed positively in the EU. But as time has passed, more and more questions have been raised about him. His dismissive policy towards Ukraine, his seemingly arbitrary blocking of Ukraine’s EU aspirations and his deliberate gestures of disrespect should all change how Western partners view the Hungarian government.

There is hope that this will be understood in Berlin and Warsaw – the two European capitals that matter most to Magyar – as well as in the EU institutions in Brussels, and in Washington.

The United States remains highly influential with the Hungarian leadership, particularly following the passing of the Lindsey Graham bill, which will penalise buyers of Russian energy – one of which is Hungary. It is no coincidence that one of Magyar’s close advisers, National Assembly member Márton Hajdu, rushed to Washington this week.

At the same time, Péter Magyar’s policy on Ukraine is damaging to Donald Trump’s peace initiatives.

All proposals for ending the war include EU membership for Ukraine as one of the key elements of the postwar order and security guarantees. Yet Magyar is doing all he can to make this impossible.

The reasons for his actions remain unclear. Is the Hungarian prime minister simply making mistakes because of his inexperience? Is he, contrary to logic, genuinely afraid of how voters will react? Is the influence of Orbán’s "deep state" the decisive factor? Or is there some other explanation? It’s impossible to say.

What is clear is that Magyar’s policy on Ukraine is harmful to Ukraine, Hungarians, Europe and the United States alike.

This needs to end at some point. But without help from Western partners, it will be difficult to find a way out of the deadlock.

Ukraine also needs to be careful not to make mistakes of its own along the way.

Kyiv’s initial reaction to Hungary’s deliberate insults may be a desire to respond in kind – to block progress on minority rights legislation, for example.

But that would amount to Ukraine shooting itself in the foot.

Magyar’s current policy notwithstanding, Ukraine will still have to fulfil its commitments on minority rights as it moves towards EU membership – otherwise, Romania and Bulgaria could join Hungary in raising objections. Kyiv’s strategy, therefore, should be to implement the agreements in such a way as to leave Hungary without legitimate grounds for its objections once other Western capitals begin to apply pressure.

If this path is chosen, rebuilding trust will become possible, step by step. For example, negotiating the gradual opening of additional clusters alongside progress on the relevant legislation.

But given the deep crisis of trust, this process needs to be coordinated. Contact and meetings are necessary, including at the highest level.

The problem is that one side is opposed to finding a way out of the crisis. That side is Péter Magyar’s government.

Sergiy Sydorenko

Editor, European Pravda

Relations between Kyiv and Warsaw are not in the best shape. But if we had to pick out the Polish politicians who are trying to repair them, Radosław Sikorski would certainly deserve a prominent place on that list. That is why we met with him to hear his views and ideas, as well as the objections he voices towards Ukraine.

Not all of his remarks on historical issues are pleasant to hear. But this also means that even from the broadly pro-Ukrainian camp of the Polish political establishment, softer positions simply cannot be expected at the moment.

We spoke on the sidelines of the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation – the event that brought Sikorski to Ukraine. The conversation took place before the minister made his widely-reported remarks about Poland’s readiness to defend itself against Russia, and also before Russia began striking targets near the Polish border. Therefore, the interview does not include questions on these issues.

We began by discussing recent anti-Ukrainian provocations in Poland.

"He risks going to jail, which is where he belongs"

Radek, it’s good to see you again. We did an interview two years ago, and back then, you were quite optimistic about the development of our relations. Have they developed in the way you expected?

Well, Ukraine is now a candidate to join the European Union, and I hope one day we will be members of the same family.

I’m pretty sure I know what you’re going to say, and we’ll talk about that later, but I have to start with the most recent incident involving Grzegorz Braun, who desecrated a memorial dedicated to Ukrainians. How on earth could this happen? When are you going to stop him?

I'd like your listeners and viewers to know that Grzegorz Braun is the outer right-wing fringe of Polish politics.

He's a fascist, an antisemite and a criminal.

He has already been charged with several offences of using violence to destroy a menorah displayed in the Polish parliament, and he has also been charged for denying the Holocaust.

He is so toxic that nobody wants to even speculate about doing a coalition with him.

And I only hope that Polish courts work faster in order to eliminate him from public life.

Is there a legal way to do that?

He risks going to jail, which is where he belongs.

Okay. But I also believe that to some degree, the kind of views he expresses are contributing to what is unfortunately one of the most visible problems in our relations. These days we are seeing reports almost daily about Ukrainians being beaten up or harassed simply because of their origin. Do you think this is happening more often than before?

We do unfortunately have crimes of ethnic prejudice and even violence. Those are very quickly and very firmly dealt with by the police.

And we also have controversies to do with historical facts that are encouraged by those who wish ill to both Ukraine and Poland. Let me remind you that when the latest controversy flared up, the leaders of our countries were congratulated by Dmitry Medvedev.

Is there a way not just to deal with the offenders, but to prevent these incidents from happening in the first place?

Well, there needs to be responsibility on behalf of the politicians of both countries not to use issues of the past to stoke up hatred today.

I think we have had some success.

[Ukrainian Foreign Minister] Andrii Sybiha and I were able to announce two years ago that the exhumations of the victims of the Volhynia massacre would resume, and they have resumed. [Sikorski is referring to the massacres of Polish civilians in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia known as the Volyn (Volhynia) tragedy, a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 – ed.]

Equally, there are exhumations of Ukrainian victims in Poland.

On my previous visit here, I requested the Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Church to appeal, the way I appealed to both sides, to give Christian burial to the victims of those events. And that seems to be working.

That is the spirit that we need to overcome historical issues. You know, neighbours always have some historical issues. And the question is how you deal with them. And I propose that the role of politicians is to make sure that the bad stuff doesn't repeat itself.

Reconciliation is not necessarily between brothers and friends.

Reconciliation is usually between former enemies.

But if Germany and France could create the European integration process five years after the Second World War, in which they were massacring each other, so can we.

"Be careful how you choose your heroes. Don’t be surprised if there’s a reaction abroad"

What else can we do – not just as journalists or politicians, but as ordinary citizens? What can ordinary people do to prevent these incidents from happening?

Well, I have one suggestion for Ukrainian politicians.

Of course, every country decides who their heroes are. But tell me who your heroes are and I'll tell you who you are.

You have plenty of genuine heroes in Ukraine, for example, heroes of your heroic resistance against Russia. So be careful how you choose your heroes from the past, because some of them have a mixed record, shall we say. And we don't need more historical controversies.

I don’t remember Ukrainians ever complaining about Poland honouring Piłsudski, Dmowski, the Home Army or the Peasant Battalions – because they are your heroes.

Piłsudski was trying to save your statehood together with Petliura in 1919.

Sure, we have some controversial heroes too.

I was recently in South Africa, and they have a national pantheon. And do you know who is in the national pantheon? Mugabe and Castro!

I received a collection of medals from Mongolia struck on the 800th anniversary of Genghis Khan, who is, I think, a controversial figure both in Poland and in Ukraine.

Every country has its historical narrative, but those historical narratives will be judged by others.

You referred to the Pantheon. Do you mean that we need to reconsider the decision made by parliament, or…?

No, I'm saying most countries have such an institution, but just be careful who you put in there, because that will produce reactions abroad.

And if you put in there people who have stained their reputation by conducting war crimes, then don’t be surprised.

You met with Petro Poroshenko here. Was that meeting also about this issue?

No, it's about me meeting with the opposition in countries that I visit.

When I visited Russia, I met the opposition.

When I visit Germany, I meet not only the government, I meet the opposition. Because the nature of opposition is that it can become the government.

Okay, let’s move on to the EU. You said that one day we will end up in the same family...

And by the way, when Croatia was a candidate to join the European Union, Croatia was told: if you continue to praise your fascists from the wartime period, then you're denying yourself the right to belong to our family, because in our family we do not put fascists on monument plates.

The key difference is that the UPA is not the same thing as fascism.

It has a fascist ideology.

Well, Dmowski also did. But he is still honoured in Poland.

Which is why he's such a controversial figure.

"Poland will not block any negotiating chapters"

Regarding our European future, what do you see as the key obstacles that we still have to overcome?

I helped to finish the negotiations on Ukraine's Association Agreement, which includes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area, but that was back in 2011. It was 15 years ago, and you still have not fully implemented the Association Agreement.

My advice would be – do that!

Because you can have access to the single market even before you become a full member. And that's a big benefit. Poland will not block any negotiating chapters, but that's not to say that we will not have a difficult negotiation on some matters. And we know what they are!

Agriculture will be difficult for existing members,

not just for Poland, because you have a different structure of your agriculture.

Because of the collectivisation and Holodomor carried out by the Soviet authorities, thousands of your small farms were destroyed, and you have these huge holdings of tens of thousands of hectares. That's a completely different pattern of land-holding than in the European Union.

You also have the best land in Europe. You are very, very competitive in agriculture.

We have a similar relationship that Poland had with Western Europe in terms of wage competitiveness, for example, in transportation.

Your long-distance truckers are more competitive than Polish truckers, and there will be vigorous debate here.

The nature of the relationship is that overall it is beneficial to both sides, but there will be some sectors where the costs will fall disproportionately. And you have politics and we have politics.

Did I understand you correctly – do you support the idea that we should open all the negotiating clusters as soon as possible?

No, it's more complicated than that. The Commission first has to say that Ukraine fulfils the criteria for opening clusters. And then it's a political decision to open them, and we have no objections against opening clusters, but others do.

The European Commission has said multiple times that Ukraine has met the conditions for opening the clusters. Meanwhile, Hungary’s Foreign Ministry recently stated publicly in parliament that it was Poland that asked Hungary to block them…

That's not true. We're not blocking a single chapter.

That Poland asked Hungary to block the process.

No. No. This is not a matter of speculation. You either raise your hand for blocking or you don't. We don't.

Okay. When do you expect the clusters to be opened?

There is a vigorous debate between Ukraine and the new Hungarian government on the minority issues, and I hope it produces a positive result.

Is it possible that our European friends, including Poland, could tell, ask or at least hint to the Hungarian government that it’s time to move forward?

No… Yes, we do.

We need all member states to fulfil the criteria for treating minorities according to the Council of Europe Convention on Minorities, which means that if in any district there are 20% people or more from a national minority, there should be double signs on the names of streets and roads, there should be education of at least some subjects in the language of the minority, and that the language of the minority should be available in public spaces.

I understand there is now a constructive debate between Ukraine and Hungary on this.

"You have to calculate what your national interest really is"

You mentioned that there are some sectors where we will have difficult debates or issues to resolve during the negotiations. Unfortunately, in Ukraine there is a perception that Poland could potentially block our path towards EU membership because of some of these issues.

I think I've said it clearly enough that we will not block!

We will negotiate.

Opening a chapter is not the same as closing the chapter. Opening means that you start negotiating, and we will have issues, just like Western Europe had issues with us.

Let me give you an example. I live in the countryside, and you know, Poland used to have a very big milk industry. And we had to close down some of our milk processing plants because of the quotas we received from the European Union.

Were we happy about it? No we weren't!

Have we benefited from EU membership since then? Yes we have!

You will have some painful decisions to make too.

What makes you confident that compromises will be possible? Let me explain why I’m insisting on asking this. People remember the border blockade in 2023. So we need to give them more reason to believe that compromise is actually possible.

Now let's remember what actually happened.

When the Russians blocked your export capacity through the Black Sea, just as they're doing now, Poland out of friendship allowed the transit of Ukrainian grain through Poland to your traditional markets, to Egypt and to China.

And then what happened was that two-thirds of the Ukrainian grain, instead of getting to Egypt, stayed in Poland and depressed prices in Poland, which was not supposed to happen.

And Polish farmers protested.

See, these are difficult issues.

Can you see a way to convince hauliers, farmers and all the other groups that could be affected that Ukraine’s accession to the European Union would also be beneficial to them?

We have creative solutions.

So when our truckers became too competitive with Western European truckers, the European Union devised a scheme whereby if you cross the border of your country, you have to be paid as a trucker the wage of that country, which benefits the truckers, but doesn't benefit the trucking companies.

And so you have to weigh those interests, and you have to calculate what your national interest really is. Do you back the truckers, or do you back the owners of their companies?

And you will have to make such calculations yourself.

Is it possible to convince them? Might Poland hold a referendum on Ukraine’s EU accession, as some countries have done?

It's not obliged in Poland, but in some countries it is, you are right.

And would you consider that possibility, or…?

It's unnecessary.

As the British have learned, you have to be careful with the referendum.

"The Russians have proven that they are a threat to all of Europe"

Let’s talk about security and NATO. You personally support NATO membership for Ukraine, I know.

I supported it in Bucharest back in 2008, when it didn't happen.

Does the Polish public support it? And what about the Polish political establishment?

I'm not sure. I don't recall a recent opinion poll on this.

But it's a hard issue, because NATO membership is essentially a security guarantee. Unfortunately, Ukraine already has Western security guarantees under the Budapest Memorandum. And you also have a security guarantee from Russia, both under the Budapest Memorandum and in your border treaty, signed and ratified by Putin.

What I'm saying to you is that guarantees are useful if they're credible.

There is nothing more dangerous in international affairs than a non-credible security guarantee.

What is a feasible way of integrating Ukraine into Europe’s security and defence architecture? Because I believe Europe also needs Ukraine.

Sure. You are resisting Russian imperialism, which is a threat to all of Europe, and not just Eastern Europe.

With their attacks on Germany, the Russians have proven that they are a threat to all of Europe.

So what would be the way to include us?

The best way is for you to win.

You will be a huge exporter of military technology, and we will be learning about how to conduct a modern war in your military academies.

And perhaps one final topic: our peace negotiations. We’ve heard concerns – or perhaps I should call them demands – that Poland should be involved in these negotiations.

Well, Poland is the only country in Europe that borders both Russia and Ukraine.

We also carry 95% of all assistance to Ukraine as a transit country.

And we provide security for that hub, without which you wouldn't get the stuff. And Poland will be directly affected by the outcome of these negotiations.

We are also now a G20 economy.

We spend $50 billion per annum on defence, on hard defence – even more if you include dual-use stuff. We have more tanks and more brigades than Germany, France and Britain combined that we could deploy.

So we think yes, that we should be consulted.

Do you feel that Poland’s interests and concerns are being taken into account?

We have meetings in various formats. The one that we prefer is the E5, which includes countries of the Southern tier, Northern tier and Eastern tier.

The times when Western Europe was deciding about our Eastern European security should be confined to bad history.

Interview by Sergiy Sydorenko

Video by Mykhailo Alekseev

European Pravda

12 September 2026, Yalta European Strategy Conference