Victor Pinchuk Foundation hosted the YES Special Gathering in Kyiv “Three Years – Time to Win”

On 24 February 2025, on the third anniversary of Ukraine’s resistance to the full-scale invasion of Russia, Yalta European Strategy (YES) and Victor Pinchuk Foundation held the YES Special Gathering in Kyiv “Three Years – Time to Win”.

A day after the German elections, a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration, and a week into US-Russian negotiations on the war in Ukraine, politicians and experts gather in Kyiv to discuss strategies for securing Ukraine in a changing world.

Among the topics of the YES Special Gathering in Kyiv were the following:
• Where is the War Going?
• Economic Survival, Economic Potential: Support Ukraine and Prosper?
• Future of Europe
• Will Donald Trump End the War? Perspectives and Perils of a Deal
• Security Guarantees and Peace - What Will Work and Voters Will Support.

“Now is the right moment to say how grateful all Ukrainians are to our great partners, the people of the United States, Europeans, the people of Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and many other countries who have supported us during these three years. Ukrainians will never forget this, because this is really vital support.’, said Victor Pinchuk, businessman, philanthropist, YES Founder, in his opening speech.

“I want to say very frankly, this is our third gathering, I really hate this, I don’t want to mark it anymore. The first year, when we did this, we called the gathering, ‘One year – Stay in the fight’, the second year, ‘Two years – Stay in the fight’, this year my team said we should keep this name. I said no, “let’s call this gathering ‘Three years – Time to win’. Because I really believe that the Ukrainian people, with the great support from our partners, the USA, under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the Europeans and all our main partners, will achieve this goal, will achieve this just peace for Ukraine.

“For me it's obvious, Europe must change completely its understanding of this moment. Europe must do something very simple, but very revolutionary, very important: use the 300bn of frozen Russian assets for Ukraine; make EU countries budget for military spending at least over 3%; spend dramatically much more on the military support of Ukraine; spend much more on your defence industry; please send soldiers to Ukraine; please give very serious, very solid security guarantees; and of course, please take Ukraine into the EU now, not sometime – NOW.
I think this is an adequate response to the moment.”

The moderator of the panel, Kurt Volker, Honorary Member of the Centre for European Policy Analysis, said: “President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is the legitimate and duly elected leader of Ukraine. Ukraine is a democracy that was brutally attacked 11 years ago, and again, in an even more brutal invasion, three years ago. The only dictator that we are thinking about and talking about is Vladimir Putin, who has been in power for 25 years, and imprisons, poisons, and kills his political opponents and launched this war against Ukraine. We hear about negotiations, and we hear that the Russian delegation wants to talk about root causes. The root causes of this war are Vladimir Putin’s false historical narrative that Ukraine does not exist and that Russia has a right as an imperial power to rule other countries and deny other people their own agency. That is an imperial and genocidal mania, and that is the reason we have this war.”
Dmytro Finashyn, Hero of Ukraine, Advisor on Veteran Policy to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, stated: “We are fighting for our future, our freedom, and our right to live — simply to live and to raise our children so that they can experience peace and tranquility.”

He described this war as a historical baton passed down from generation to generation. “There has always been someone who wanted to conquer us and take away our will and freedom. That is why we must fight—whether against one adversary or another. Currently, we face the misfortune of fighting against the Russians. I hope this marks the final stage of our struggle, and that we will not have to pass this baton on to anyone else.”

Mariia Nazarova, a tactical medicine instructor, agreed that it is the first time in history when Ukrainians have a chance to win: “We are the army of our own country. We are the state, we have everything that is Ukrainian and that is fully legitimate. And so maybe it's the first chance in our history to win.”

“Our people fight for values, not for money, not for propaganda, but for values,” emphasized Mariia Nazarova, a tactical medicine instructor. “I am absolutely sure that it is something in the DNA that we are bringing to the fight - it is dignity, it is the choice that we make. And this value of dignity is very, very, deeply embroidered in us,” she went on to say.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania (2020-2024), stated: “We talk about the cold showers; the wake-up calls. The scary thing is that this isn’t the first cold shower for Europe. There was a shower in 2008, in 2014, there was one the first time Donald Trump was elected, and again in 2022. So, I raise the question, after so many showers, is Europe alive?

“190bn of the frozen [Russian] assets are in European banks. They are there, it’s fair, it’s easy, one vote, you take it, and you spend it on Ukraine. But when I talk to people in Europe the answer I get is, “It’s too difficult”. The time for easy is over. If we don’t start doing the difficult stuff it’s over for us.

Gabrielius Landsbergis in his response to a follow-up question from Kurt Volker, re: a European deterrence force that could be deployed in Ukraine, said: “We are in the process of rewriting what Europe is. Europe is a force for good, that can have a military force to be reckoned with. Our mandate must be to fight. We have to be very clear, not an inch of Ukrainian territory. That has to be said now. We are here to fight with Ukraine, for Ukraine.”

Photos are available here
Video is available here