Why Ukraine’s victory is in the cards
A month or so ago, after a meeting with the Ukrainian ambassador in Australia, I remember thinking to myself: “Competent people. This is the reason we will win this war!” This is my reason for hope: I see a generation of Ukrainian leaders who are competent, passionate, and not corrupt.
This hope is different from emotion alone — it’s the hope that lies in understanding of life’s odds. Life is a game of both skill and luck — more akin to poker than to game of dice.
Here’s what gives me hope — of the rational, constructive kind. Ukraine has reached the tipping point of having enough well-qualified and extremely motivated people: from President’s Office, to the Military, to Diplomatic Corps, to academics, to common citizens. These are the people of skill, the kind who tilt the odds of history’s poker in favor of Ukraine.
The case for Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat
It is the people that make the nation. And therein lies the reason for Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat. Project Ukraine draws on people’s agency and ingenuity, bringing in the best ideas and the brightest minds.
Project Russia draws on revanchism and grievance, and on the outdated colonial notion of territorial expansion, regardless of the human cost. Russia’s brightest minds are leaving the country en masse. Ukraine has its eyes on the future, while Russia — on the past.
Yes, you may counter, indeed — Ukraine has the will, the brains, and the moral upper hand in this war. However, so it did many times in the past. After all, Ukrainian geography remains unchanged, as does Russian aggressive imperialism. What’s different this time around?
What’s different is two-fold: (i) the history that’s being created now, and (ii) the people who are creating this history.
In history, like in the game of poker, some factors are outside Ukraine’s control: Germany’s energy dependence on Russia, Chinese autocrats’ balancing act, America’s polarization, world economy’s post-pandemic fatigue. These factors are a matter of luck: Ukraine has to play the cards we are dealt.
How we play these cards, however, is up to us: that is a matter of skill. Three critical factors that can tip the game in our favor, and all of them are a matter of people:
(i) Ukraine’s human capital,
(ii) Ukraine’s shift away from the Soviet ways of thinking, governing and doing business,
(iii) Ukraine’s national unity and purpose.
The human capital
If I have to name the one component that makes for a thriving nation, it’s human capital, — the sum total of brain cells employed in solving the collective national-level optimization problem. Perhaps a better term is human capital employed. After all, it is the mobilization of human knowledge, dedication, and skill that makes a difference, — not the mere existence of said skill.
One of my personal takeaways from that talk by Vasyl Miroshnychenko, the Ukrainian Ambassador in Australia — was how much Ukrainians achieved over the past eight years, starting from 2014. It’s not only the Ukrainian military that got stronger, more numerous, and more skilled since Russia’s invasion in 2014. Ukrainians have also built a stronger public relations and foreign service cadre, full of people educated in world’s best Universities, and skilled in both defending Ukraine’s interests internationally.
One thing the 2014 invasion did is mobilized Ukraine’s best talent to defend Ukraine in this war. Once talent is mobilized, each new year brings compound interest: there are strong network effects in that people build connections in the army, in business, politics, the volunteer movement, and activism. The various initiatives from these networks formed in 2013-2014 are bearing fruit now, — from helping the Ukrainian army to influencing the policy agenda in the EU, to fundraising for Ukraine.
The full-scale war from February 24th till now further mobilized Ukrainian people. The learning curve in times of war is steep. To sink or to swim — is not a matter of choice, but a matter of survival. That is as true for Ukrainian refugees rapidly adjusting to the new conditions, as it is for the Ukrainian military mastering new equipment in record times. Perhaps the best example of this growth is Ukraine’s President Zelensky, who transformed into a charismatic and competent Ukraine’s wartime leader.
The war mobilized the best of Ukrainian academia. Kyiv School of Economics, for example, launched a plethora of knowledge products, including Global Minds for Ukraine (a series of talks with social scientists, economists, and historians, targeting the most topical issues of Ukraine’s history, economy, and more), Ukrainian Global University (a platform connecting Ukrainian students and scholars with foreign Universities that offer scholarships and grants), SET University (an IT-focused educational platform, co-founded by KSE, and offering computer science programs to Ukrainians anywhere); also, the KSE team hosted and attended at least 123 international events between February 25 and June 15, 2022.
Ukrainian economists organized the network Economists for Ukraine, which uses the best Economics research to end Russia’s invasion and rebuild Ukraine. One notable paper by Economists for Ukraine is A Blueprint for the Reconstruction of Ukraine (co-authored by eight top economists, including Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard, Yuriy Gorodnichenko of UC Berkley, Torbjörn Becker of Stockholm School of Economics, Tymofiy Mylovanov of KSE and more). Other notable projects include monitoring and analyzing sanctions, the analysis of corporate exits from Russia, International Working Group on Russian Sanctions, The LifeForce project (using AI to power humanitarian aid supply chain and logistics), and many others.
Ukrainian economists are also fighting the war through various fundraising efforts. I’ve argued before that where you donate makes a huge difference. Sending money to effective and transparent Ukrainian charities has much greater impact on the ground than sending money to Red Cross or UNHR.
Ukrainians are certainly keeping up with the times in its creative fundraising campaigns, including through crypto,
…also NFTs:
…auctioning off the Eurovision trophy to buy the drones for Ukrainian Army:
Dispensing with “sovok”
One major constraining factor on people’s ingenuity is what we call “sovok” —the term encapsulates a variety of Soviet ways of thinking, governing and doing business. They are the modus operandi of a Homo Soveticus — from petty theft to corruption to disapproval of success in any form. The faster Ukraine dispenses with sovok, the faster the transformation brought by Ukrainians’ competence and skill.
“Sovok” does not have a Wikipedia page, — it’s one of those phenomena which “you know once you see it”. I could see it as a high school student in Ukraine. The government officials who spoke at various award ceremonies sounded like characters straight out of a Soviet-times movie. I later witnessed the “sovok” modus operandi as an intern at the World Bank, when attending a round table discussion with an invited Ukrainian minister. The minister spoke little English, mistook me for a secretary, and asked for attendance numbers — his chief concern was about having few empty chairs in the room.
The ousting of “sovok” from Ukrainian minds has been underway since independence times. But the true break came after the Revolution of Dignity of 2014. Many call it the “Euro-Maidan Revolution”, reflecting Ukrainians’ demand for signing the association agreement with the EU (put on hold by the pro-Russian Yanukovych regime). For well-told chronicles of those times, I recommend Andrei Kurkov’s “Ukraine Diaries”. But the short of it is, Ukrainians’ pro-EU sentiment can be summarized as the ultimate determination to dispense with sovok, and live in a country with clear rules equally applied to everyone.
Ukraine’s national unity and purpose
Management gurus like to emphasize how vision and mission enables the corporate productivity and culture. Similarly, the common vision and purpose makes for strong nations. In times of war, the mission and vision of any Ukrainian is well-encapsulated in the questions of What we fight for. The answer becomes very clear when you scroll through the Twitter feeds of those on the front lines: they fight for their children. Their homes, their wives. They are not fighting for an abstract idea, but for things that are very concrete, very tangible.
Equally concrete are the heroes of this war. The ones who die on the front lines are our classmates, next-door neighbors, public figures, family members. The history of this war is the history of lives sacrificed for what we Ukrainians believe in. A story of one life is always a story of Ukraine’s fight against Russia— such as the life of Roman Ratushny, who died recently on battlefield. He was among the first wave of students beaten by riot police on the first day of the Revolution of Dignity in 2013.
The road ahead
As I write about Ukraine’s victory, I do not mention Russia. Russia must be contained militarily, as no victory is possible without the military containment of the aggressor. But beyond this, victory is about Ukraine. A thriving nation. A rule of law. Economic opportunity. Strong institutions. A professional army.
I’ve argued before that given Ukrainian geography and Russian imperialism, the Russian threat is unlikely to disappear, and therefore Ukraine must build up its strength — in terms of military force, national and cultural identity, economy and more.
I’m hopeful for Ukraine because of our human capital, our gradual overcoming of the Soviet ways of thinking, governing and doing business, and our national unity and purpose.
