Below is the speech I delivered today, 28 July, at Stortorget in Helsingborg, invited by the Monday Movement. It was an honour to speak at a Monday gathering in the square, and moving to see all the people and all the commitment, three years into the full scale war of Ukraine.
Dear friends,
Exactly twenty-five years ago today, I travelled to Ukraine for the first time, to Donetsk, as a young and committed democracy activist. I met young Ukrainians organising for democracy and freedom of association. I saw their energy, their determination to break old corrupt patterns. That same energy is what carries the country today. I often think about those I met in those workshops so many years ago. I wonder what may have happened to them now. Whether they managed to leave the occupied areas. Whether they are alive. What became of them.
War creates many stories. Mine as well.
Since the full-scale invasion in 2022, I have had reason to return to Ukraine many times. The experiences from then and now make me reflect on resilience.
It is 04:40 one night in Kyiv. The air-raid alarm on my phone wrenches me from sleep yet again. I grab my emergency bag—always packed and ready beside the bed, and run down to the shelter, where I meet my colleague. On the stairs we pass other hotel guests, all moving with the same practised routine. Most of us are in the city on war-related business. On this trip, I have been “upgraded” at the hotel, as I am now a frequent visitor. In wartime Kyiv, an upgrade means a room low in the building and close to the stairs to the shelter.
Down in the shelter, colourful beanbags are scattered about and a number of beds have been set up. At a few tables you can sit and work. An attempt has been made to create an illusion of normality in the parking garage several floors underground. On my phone, the app glows red—a warning system that has become as everyday for Kyiv residents as the weather report once was. This was the 1,237th air-raid warning in Kyiv since the war began. Suddenly, muffled bangs echo in the distance. The missiles have passed our side of the river, probably shot down by air defences. Locals have learned to distinguish between ballistic missiles, drones, air defences and other sounds. One kind of bang is dangerous. Another, the sound of a Patriot being launched to protect the city, feels reassuring.
But it is not the night’s bombings that I remember most vividly from that day. A few hours later, the city wakes. People go to work. My Ukrainian colleagues have dropped their children at preschools and schools and are back at their desks. Like any other day. “We cannot pause our work because of missiles,” one of them tells me. “That is exactly what Russia wants.”
I have travelled to Kyiv several times this past year. Each time I have returned with images I will never forget. Yet it is not the dramatic images that stay with me most. It is the everyday ones. Like when, one evening, I walk back to the hotel after a day filled with meetings and development work with our Ukrainian colleagues in the authorities there.
Outside on the street, three young people stand by a battered street piano. The young man’s fingers dance across the keys while two women sit on either side and sing. They laugh, pick up the melody, improvise. Their music fills the street, and I stop to listen.
This is resilience. Not the spectacular, but the ordinary. The decision to keep singing when everything tells you to stop. To keep playing when the world feels as if it is about to collapse.
The next day, I walk through the city centre. On Maidan Square, a sea of blue and yellow flags stretches out. Thousands of small flags, each bearing the name of a fallen soldier. I watch people stop, lay flowers, touch the photographs. In front of each picture, someone has placed personal belongings. A toy car. A pair of glasses. A handwritten note. A mosaic of memories and losses that is also a reminder of what is at stake: the freedom to sing in the street. To play the piano under the open sky. To celebrate a birthday. To take a train to Donetsk to visit family and friends.
At Kyiv’s railway station, this is starkly visible. On the information board in the main hall, the names of destinations such as Donetsk, Luhansk, Mariupol still light up—cities now out of reach, occupied. But Kherson is there too, shining white, once again accessible. A board showing connections that no longer exist, yet also a symbol of hope. In the contrast between the fallen soldiers’ flags on Maidan and the timetable’s optimism lies the essence of Ukrainian resistance.
My work takes me to Ukraine to develop tools together with Ukrainian authorities to counter the disinformation and information warfare taking place not only in wartime Ukraine, but across Europe’s hybrid war. We train analysts and operators to strengthen their capabilities through new technology and innovation. We create training materials and work to build capacity, not only in Ukraine but here in Sweden as well. It may sound technical, but it concerns something very fundamental: protecting democracy and the open society in war.
Sweden’s contribution matters. Not only the practical work on the ground, as I have described, but everything we all do together. Every time we show that we care, every time we demonstrate as we do today, every time we say that Ukraine’s struggle is also our struggle, we strengthen their resilience.
Ten days ago, I returned from my latest trip to Kyiv. Some of the nights during that visit saw the heaviest bombings since the war began. While travelling, I read excerpts of testimonies from the bombings in London during the Second World War, and I felt as if I were there. The similarities between Kyiv today and London then are painful.
Today I am here, on holiday as I usually am on the Kulla Peninsula in the north west part of Skåne. The contrasts seize me. But they also remind us what we have to defend. The freedom to travel. The ability to be with friends and family. To sleep and feel safe. To walk down the street and eat ice cream on a summer day. The right to say what we think. All the ordinary things, all that is priceless.
Ukraine’s struggle for democracy and freedom is also our struggle. Every day Russia’s aggression is resisted, not only Ukraine but all of Europe’s resilience is strengthened.
The war will not be over until Ukraine has won and Russia has been so thoroughly defeated that it no longer poses a threat to Europe. Until then, we must continue our work.
I have learned much during my time in Ukraine, but one thing stands out: real resilience is not primarily about weapons and technology. It is about people’s collective will to defend their way of life.
Resilience, I have realised, is something as simple as continuing to play the piano when everything tells you to stop. To keep standing here, together, for what we believe in. This is a struggle we cannot afford to lose—and one that we, through our combined efforts, will win.
Thank you.
