VLADIMIR PUTIN, Russia’s president, deserves the highest medal of Ukraine. He has done more for its European integration in the past few months than any Ukrainian politician has over the past 20 years. He has stopped the country’s directionless drift, consolidated its elite, given it an impetus westward and mobilised European politicians. Never before has Ukraine been so close to signing an association and free-trade agreement with the European Union, a step towards EU membership.
Nestled amid the green Crimean hills, lapped by the Black Sea’s languid waves, Yalta’s battle-scarred appearance in February 1945 prompted Winston Churchill to call it “the Riviera of Hades.” It still has the faint aura of a seaside resort for secret policemen.
Nobel Prize Winner; Head of the Board, Center for Civil Liberties, YES Special meeting in Kyiv on February 24th, 2024 “Two Years - Stay in the Fight”
«We must remember, that in this war against Russia, we are fighting not only for our territory but also for our democratic choice to build a country where the rights of everybody are protected, the government is accountable, the judiciary is independent and the police do not beat students who are peacefully protesting»