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.
President of Poland (1995–2005), Chairman of the Board of YES, Щорічна Зустріч YES 2022 «Україна: На захисті нашої спільної свободи»
«Ukraine needs powerful and unconditional support: military, financial, and humanitarian. We must keep our unity. The unity of the democratic world is the key to success»