Peace Through Strength NOW! Summary of the 1st Day of the YES Annual Meeting 2026

The 22nd Annual Meeting of the Yalta European Strategy (YES) “Peace Through Strength NOW!” was held on 11-12 September in Kyiv. 700 leading politicians, diplomats, businessmen, servicemen of the armed forces of Ukraine, veterans, civil activists, and experts from 28 countries took part in the conference organised by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.

A Conversation With Military Commanders

During the first panel discussion, the audience heard from military commanders Andrii Biletskyi, Commander of the 3rd Army Corps, Denys Prokopenko, Commander of the 1st Azov Corps, Oleg Apostol, Commander of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Commander of the 2nd Khartia Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine, Ihor Obolienskyi, and Yevhen Lasiichuk, Commander of the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces of Ukraine. 

The Commanders delivered a direct message to European decision makers from the frontline, ‘Can Europe help give what Ukraine needs now?, What does the conference title, “Peace through strength NOW”, mean, specifically and tangibly?

Commander of the 3rd Army Corps of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andrii Biletskyi believes that getting through the winter will depend to a large extent on how effectively Ukraine can defend against ballistic missiles and attack drones.

“This will be a very difficult winter. Whether we succeed or fail will depend on whether we can protect Ukrainian skies this winter. This objective has two components: shielding the skies against the missile threats, ballistic missiles, and protecting the skies from jet-powered Shaheds and jet-powered drones of the Shahed-Banderol type.”

“If we also get through these challenges with dignity and effectively, I think that by April Russia will face an existential question: why and how should it continue the war at all, given that it will not have achieved any of its strategic objectives,” Andrii Biletskyi concluded.

Commander of the 1st Azov Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine Denys Prokopenko said that, in its existential fight against Russia’s terror and aggression, Ukraine is defending not only itself but is also buying time for the entire civilized world by preventing the war from spreading across the European continent.

“Russia is fighting not only against Ukraine; it is fighting against the entire civilized world. This is a major challenge for all civilized Western nations. And this is not a war between two armies — it is a war against civilians; it is the terror against civilians; it is the daily destruction of our energy infrastructure; it is the torture to death of our prisoners of war; it is the forced mobilization of the Ukrainian population in the temporarily occupied territories. And, unfortunately, all of this is what European countries can expect if Ukraine stops fighting back. Everyone must understand very clearly that right now Ukraine is giving Europe, the United States and the entire civilized world an opportunity to gain the most valuable resource before the outbreak of a large-scale war: time!” he concluded.

Commander of the 7th Rapid Response Corps of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yevhen Lasiichuk noted that the partial replacement of people with robots along the frontlines would help reduce personnel losses. However, he stressed that this depends critically on partner support, scaling up successful practices and deploying the latest technologies directly on the battlefield.

“I believe we are on the threshold of the next technological step: the partial replacement of people with robots. For us, this means, first, fewer people on the frontline and fewer personnel losses. But the key factor is partner support in scaling up successful practice and technology,” Yevhen Lasiichuk said.

“Today, Ukraine is paying a very high price for its experience, which tomorrow could save the lives of our partners. Our task is to turn this experience into a shared advantage,” he added.

Oleg Apostol, Commander of the Air Assault Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, believes that Russian aggression poses a long-term threat not only to Ukraine, as the Russian leadership has shown no intention of stopping even if it were hypothetically to achieve its objectives in Ukraine.

“He (Putin – ed.) has nothing to lose, believe me. He will go all the way now. So he will not stop at Ukraine. He no longer cares what happens after him. He does not care if China takes half the land. Even that does not matter to him. Right now, he has set his sights on Ukraine. But we will not be the last. You can see there are signals that he is considering a strike against the Baltic states. Fine, will he stop at the Baltic states? No, he will not,” he went on to say.

Commander of the 2nd Khartia Corps of the National Guard of Ukraine Ihor Obolienskyi is convinced that it is Ukraine and the Ukrainian people who have been holding back Russian aggression in recent years, preventing it from spreading further to EU and NATO countries.

“Is the war deterring Russia from attacking the West? No! I want all of you to understand that it is not the war that is holding Russia back — it is Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. And twelve years have passed from the point when people were saying, ‘let’s not admit Ukraine to NATO,’ to the point of saying, ‘thank God there is Ukraine’,” he noted.

What Must We Actually Do to End the War — A View from Europe

Giving his opinion about how the war will end, Jonathan Powell, National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, said, “At some stage, when we least expect it, Putin will be ready to negotiate. This war only ends in one way; it ends in a negotiation. He is not going to take Ukraine. He is not going to conquer Kyiv. There will be a negotiation. He will have to participate in it, and it's all about making him be serious for that negotiation, and I think our strategy is beginning to work.”

“I wrote a book called Talking to Terrorists. I'd certainly be in favour of talking to this terrorist as well to try and maintain communication. Doesn't mean you give in to it, but you have to maintain that contact.”

“I see no cracks in British public opinion, young or old, on Ukraine. Britain is one of the most resolute countries in Europe or anywhere else in terms of supporting it. The new prime minister has just come in in Britain. Absolutely no crack. His first visit was to come here to Ukraine. His first meeting in the UK was with the Ukrainian president. There's absolute consensus, with the exception of very small fringe right-wing groups and actually very extreme left fringe groups. The British public are very resolute.”

“We don't have to play the same game as them to succeed in this. Putin has plenty of problems. The reason he's escalating, the reason he's trying to frighten us, is he realises his strategy isn't working. He's not taking the territory. He's not destroying the morale of people in Ukraine.”

Emmanuel Bonne, Diplomatic Advisor to the President, National Security Advisor, Office of the President of the French Republic, talked about the need to be bold and take risks, saying, “I happened to be in the room the only time when President Zelenskyy and President Putin met, in Paris in December 2019, and I know that basically the boldness of President Zelenskyy in this meeting helped us collectively reopen a discussion, take a risk, and be more assertive. This is exactly what we need to do today, we need to demonstrate to our people that indeed there is a good chance that collectively we win, and that there is a benefit for our people to sustain another price rise in gas and oil.”

Responding to a question about the threat of a far right government in France, he said, 

“I’m ready to bet here that the Rassemblement National will not win the election.”

Tackling the matter of international support for ending the war, he made the point, “Ukraine matters for the whole international community. We are seeing more and more bold statements from global leaders, like Prime Minister of India Modi, recently. We need to enlarge this circle of those who can help immediately. Take the Arab Gulf states who have massive reserves of patriots, certainly they have their own difficulties, but they will never be able to use all they have in their stocks.”

Radosław Sikorski, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland, said, “Putin's original ambitions were extraordinarily bold. He literally imagined that he would undo the collapse of the Soviet Union and make Russia a superpower again, part of the triad ruling the world. I think that he understands that that's unachievable. His second line was to at least bring Ukraine back as a country whose foreign policy he can control, and that is also unachievable. And my sense today is that he would like to get out of this war by claiming some kind of prize. Hence, the repeated deadlines for capturing Donbas.”

“Negotiation is one way this war ends, but another way is that it just peters out by Putin running out of resources to continue, and for that Ukraine needs to be singularly focused on striking the refineries. If over half of Russian refineries were semi permanently damaged, he could physically not continue the war on Ukraine.”

“We need to show solidarity with Ukraine on gas and electricity. But Europe will be fine. We are much more diversified. Scandinavia has renewables. France has nuclear. In Poland, we have storage, which is already 80% full, and even if there was a complete cut off, our households-that's about a third of consumption-we extract that domestically. So he can affect some of our fertiliser-making capacity, but he can't shut us down.”

Margus Tsahkna, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, spoke about the fear that Putin might escalate attacks on other European countries, saying, “We have ‘not public’ information about Russian attacks in Europe, and the Baltics are not on top of that list. This is something everybody should know. Baltics, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania are not on top of this list.”

“Putin is playing with fear. Our fear of escalation. So we need to get rid of the fear of escalation because this is exactly that Putin is playing on with these hybrid attacks dividing us, our societies, our unity, and we are afraid of winning the war or perhaps even more, we are afraid of Putin losing the war.”

“We will not wait for NATO or our allies, we will fight back. We will fight back from the first second, like Ukraine did. All bordering countries must understand that they will have to fight from the first second and then others will follow.”

Vsevolod Chentsov, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration of Ukraine, spoke about the Russian attitude to the West and the spread of Russian propaganda, saying, “NATO enlargement has been a very convenient tool for Putin to use as a ‘casus belli’ or as a reason to attack, and it's a quite a psychopathic thing because Russia used to have excellent relations with all NATO member states, maybe with exception of few countries, but he is still able, especially inside Russia, to portray NATO as a threat.”

“We need to understand what the game is with Russian propaganda. We need to be in the driving seat. We need to be sure of how we push Putin into negotiation. The motto of today’s conference is right, ‘peace through strength’. This means strength not only on the battlefield but economically. There are still European companies trading with Russia. It’s a signal, Russia thinks that if we are still trading then they can get back to normal. Russia does not understand until you knock them on the head and they can see you are serious.”

Gillian Tett, Head, King’s College Cambridge; Columnist, Financial Times, moderating the panel What Must We Actually Do to End the War - A View from Europe, stated, “It goes to show that the only way to deal with bullies is to show extreme strength rather than try and constantly bargain.”

Opening the floor to questions, Pasi Rajala, State Secretary, Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland, commenting from the audience, expressed continued solidarity with the people of Ukraine, saying, “Let me just address the Ukrainian people here first and tell you that Finland will be with Ukraine today, and we will be with you tomorrow.”

An additional point was made by Andžejs Viļumsons, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia, gave his opinion on the meaning of recent Russian escalation, saying, “Our strategy works, and the escalation from Putin's side is a good sign. Putin wants to get out of this war completely, he just needs to find the best face-saving mode. What needs to be done is one, to endure, and two, to escalate. And I don’t mean in the military sense, I mean in defence spending. If we don't invest in defence, we will not be able to help Ukraine. Latvia has given 11 years of foreign ministry budget to Ukraine. We must increase defence spending and show Putin that there are no weak links in the chain.”

Echoing the sentiment of his Nordic neighbour, Eivind Vad Petersson, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway, said, “Allow me briefly just to share an image from the streets of Oslo two days ago, because that was a special day for Norway. We had the funeral of our late king, and royals from all over Europe, heads of state from all over Europe, were gathered in Oslo, and they walked in a procession behind the coffin of our late king, through the streets of Oslo.  It was extraordinarily quiet, with one exception. When President Zelenskyy walked past, applause broke out. That was not only applause for President Zelenskyy himself. That was applause from the Norwegian people to the Ukrainian people, to your heroes and to your veterans.”

Darius Skusevičius, Political Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, called for renewed support for Ukraine, as the European continent prepares for a difficult winter, “I don't know how many of you were here last winter, but for those who were here even for several days, it was a very difficult winter and this winter will be even more difficult and then we will see many great leaders bringing equipment for February 24, which is, I want to remind you, almost the end of a winter, and the Ukrainians need it before that. So my invitation here is not to repeat what I fully agree with, but to try to overcome our fears, and to do at least a little bit more. Each of us a little bit more than we usually do, and that would be a great result already.”

The War — Where Are We?

Asked by Gillian Tett, Head, King’s College Cambridge; Columnist, Financial Times, moderator, “Could the new ballistic missiles being developed by Russia create a socio-economic crisis? 

Vadym Skibitskyi, Deputy Chief, Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, answered, “This is not a risk. It is a real threat. Russia’s objective is not only to attack our defence industry, but to destroy our economy, our electricity, heating and water systems, and to destabilise Ukraine. We have reduced the tempo of Russia’s offensive activity on the battlefield, including around Pokrovsk, Lyman and Kupiansk. That is an important result for Ukraine’s Armed Forces. Russia is changing its tactics and increasing the missile threat. This includes not only Russian ballistic missiles, but North Korean ballistic missiles being used against Ukrainian territory.”

The US Senate’s Ukraine Policy —  A Tribute to Lindsey Graham

In the panel titled: The US Senate’s Ukraine Policy —  A Tribute to Lindsey Graham, moderator Oleksandra Ustinova, Member of Parliament, Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, paid tribute to the late US Senator Lindsey Graham:

“Senator Graham was a big friend of Ukraine, who visited seven or eight times, and did a lot for us. Sometimes quietly, sometimes publicly, but he was a big loss for us as a country.”

John Curtis, Senator, United States Senate, stated: “Whether it's Iran or Ukraine and the conflicts around the world, people are learning how to fight against a superpower or a large power with far fewer resources. And so what does that call for? It calls for innovation. It calls for asymmetric warfare. It calls for creative thinking.”

“Good is going to win over evil.”

Alan Armstrong, Senator, United States Senate, added, “I do think that the American people, and certainly speaking for Oklahomans, are extremely supportive of Ukraine. I haven't seen that wane at all, in fact, I would say it's probably continued to increase.”

“And a lot of that, frankly, is because of the courage and the spirit that Americans recognize that Ukraine has done and they've seen what they've been able to do with very little in the way of assets and resources, but with their spirit and courage have overcome so much. And Americans love to see that.”

“If you think about American origins and you think about an asymmetric war, we kind of came from that origin ourselves, frankly. It is that spirit and courage that we see in Ukrainians that we very much want to support.”

Thom Tillis, Senator, United States Senate, said: “Let's think ahead and figure out how we address some of this capacity problem that's going to persist for a while. You can't flip a switch and all of a sudden double the capacity of interceptors overnight. So we have to come up with interim measures, and maybe different long-term measures.”

The View from the US House of Representatives

In the panel titled:  The View from the US House of Representatives,  Jim Costa, Congressman, US House of Representatives, stated emphatically, 

“This is a war between good and evil. Putin is a war criminal. Modern-day Russia is a syndicate masquerading as a country, with a mob boss called Putin. It really is good versus evil. It is a test of our time. It is a seminal moment in our history.

“Our partnership has made a difference, and now we have an administration that seems to be treating our adversaries, Russia, China and North Korea, and even this contradictory policy with Iran, in a way that benefits Putin, while treating our allies as our enemies.”

Salud Carbajal, Congressman, US House of Representatives, agreed, saying, “It is bizarre that we are not releasing the money that members of Congress approved, the $400 million. So we will be going back and doing what we can to raise that issue of concern. I am hopeful there will be amendment efforts.”

Don Bacon, Congressman, US House of Representatives, supporting the view of his colleagues, said, “I want to do everything we can to ensure freedom and independence for Ukraine prevail, and we know what happens if we fail in this effort.”

Eugene Vindman, Congressman, US House of Representatives, told the audience, “It is my 16th visit to Kyiv since the major phase of the war, and there is overwhelming bipartisan support from the American people. But there is a sense of fatigue. We’ve had 20 years of war in the Middle East, and since this administration started, the Middle East has been a major distraction.”

“When we see democracies that align with our values, we must protect them with everything we have. We must stand by our friends. We can get into the nuance of the legislative process, but we must stand by our friends. That needs to be our guiding light,”  added Wesley Bell, Congressman, US House of Representatives.

Moderator Oleksandra Ustinova concluded the panel by stating: “Thank you, Congress, for always standing on our side. It was always you pushing for more changes and more weapons.”

Can AI End the War and Strengthen Democracies Against Autocracies?

In the session titled: Can AI End the War and Strengthen Democracies Against Autocracies? moderated by Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Louis Mosley, CEO, Palantir Technologies UK, said:  “I was struck, after Anthropic unveiled Mythos, by the fact that the major use case for the most advanced models is now cyber warfare, that's what they're really good at.”

“As we sit here discussing Ukraine's specific problems and challenges, the debate about AI regulation is one that affects all of our lives – all of humanity,” he added.

Artem Martynenko, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, responsible for digital transformation and innovation added: “AI is being used in Ukraine on a daily basis. It’s in the systems that we are using for our day-to-day business, it's the war-fighting systems, it's the systems that are supporting our economy.”

“Digital tools will help veterans to integrate back into society,” pointed out Annette Kroeber-Riel, Vice President of Government Affairs & Public Policy for      Europe Google. 

“Wherever you look in Ukraine, you are role modelling the use and adoption of AI for good. It is awe-inspiring to see what Ukraine has achieved in just four years since the full-scale invasion,” she added.

Sanna Marin, Former Prime Minister of Finland built on the panel discussion: “I'm so excited about all the possibilities that these technologies will give to humanity, and at the same time, I see the existential risks that are there. And they are real, if we don't create a kind of regular framework that would actually function globally.”

“AI needs to be regulated fast in a way that is enabling us to catch up with the development, and also to allow for pauses here and there. You cannot continue development that you cannot understand and fully appreciate.”

Special conversation: Victor Pinchuk speaks to Jared Kushner, United States Special Envoy of Peace

In a conversation with Jared Kushner, United States Special Envoy for Peace, Victor Pinchuk, businessman and philanthropist, founder of the YES, opened the discussion by thanking Mr Kushner for making time to join the conference on the 25th anniversary of September 11th, Mr Pinchuk asked, “How important is it to you, to end this war?”

Jared Kushner responded: “Obviously today's a day that we all remember, the tragedy that occurred 25 years ago. But I think that, when something doesn't go the way you want, you have to find the lessons of strength from it. There's so much that America can be very proud of with the strength and resilience and the way that our country rebounded from that terrible attack. There's a lot of lessons in that for Ukraine, and to see how Ukraine will no doubt rise from this terrible war and achieve its fullest potential.”

“This has been a brutal war. I think that there's a lot of different considerations from President Trump's perspective. Obviously, number one is the human cost, it's brought a lot of human suffering, which really is what sits with him the most, and then beyond that, there's the economic impact. We were talking a lot in our meetings with the Europeans about the fact that gas prices now in Europe are two to three times higher than they were before the war.

Pinchuk concluded, “Today is Rosh Hashanah. Do you think that there is a chance that in this new year we'll have new ideas how to end this war, how to start real negotiations? Do you think we have a chance for a ceasefire before winter?”  

Kushner responded, “What I would always say is everything looks impossible until right before it's achieved and I've enough experience now being involved in a lot of these complex geopolitical negotiations to know that unfortunately, you can't always show all your cards, but we're very committed to trying to find a way forward.”

The Future of AI — a Conversation with Mustafa Suleyman, CEO, Microsoft AI

In the final panel of the day: The Future of AI, Fareed Zakaria, Host and Bestselling Author, CNN spoke with Mustafa Suleyman about the role of AI and impact for national governments, geopolitics and future of Ukraine. 

Zakaria began the panel by asking how humans can control AI if they’re going to get smarter and smarter and smarter? Presumably, even just a year or two from now, these things are going to be much, much smarter than we are.”

Suleyman began by stating: “This is the uncomfortable truth. There is no containment without adding additional frictions to the rate of adoption of technology. That’s the definition of containment. We have to limit those capabilities, and we have to limit who has them.”

“By the 2030s, it’ll be possible for anybody to have what are today considered to be nation-state-grade hacking capabilities or just general-purpose intelligence capabilities.”

Zakaria queried: “Imagine a country like Russia, which is a sophisticated technological country, which has access to this kind of open-source model. We now know what their intentions are. Would they even need the Chinese? Couldn’t they plunge the United States or their adversaries into some kind of financial crisis just by unleashing these agents?”

Suleyman concluded: “The purpose of technology is to serve humanity. It is to be aligned and controlled by humanity, to reduce human suffering, to improve well-being, and that’s why we create it.”

Photos from the YES Annual Meeting 2026 are available  here 

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