Davos attendees watch Donald Trump's inauguration at Ukraine House watch party
10 September 2023
Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba: The nation’s top diplomat blasted the West’s “divisions” and “lack of will” Participation in the 18th annual YES Annual Forum September 2023 in Kiev.
About YES
For 18 years, YES has initiated dialog between leaders from Ukraine, the EU, the US and beyond. Within Ukraine, it provides a platform for the government and opposition.
- It brings together leaders from politics, business, media, civil society and the expert community.
YES Annual Meeting took place at the symbolic Livadia Palace in Yalta from 2004 to 2013. The location where Europe was divided in 1945 thus became the venue for uniting a wider Europe. After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the YES Annual Meeting moved to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
- YES meetings have brought together heads of state and government such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton, Dalia Grybauskaitė, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Bronisław Komorowski, Mario Monti, Shimon Peres and Donald Trump.
- Among the speakers were also heads of international organizations like Kofi Annan, José Manuel Barroso, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Ronald Noble, James Wolfensohn, Lamberto Zannier and Robert Zoellick.
- Senior officials, such as Hillary Clinton, Valdis Dombrovskis, Robert Gates, Johannes Hahn, Chrystia Freeland, Victoria Nuland, Condoleezza Rice and Martin Schulz, have spoken at the meetings.
- In addition, thinkers and social leaders like Richard Branson, German Gref, Richard Haass, Niall Ferguson, Alexei Kudrin, Arthur Laffer, Yurii Milner, Larry Summers, Nouriel Roubini and Strobe Talbott have been among the panelists. Presidents and Prime Ministers of Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s political, business and social leaders, regularly speak at the meetings.
Kiev cannot make its backers agree to its idea of a tribunal for top officials in Moscow, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba has said
Ukraine has made no progress in making the US and its allies agree to its idea of a tribunal for top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said in a speech on Friday.
The nation’s top diplomat blasted the West’s “divisions” and “lack of will” on the issue at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kiev.
Western nations are just as reluctant to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine, Kuleba said, adding that there has been little progress on this matter as well. “Unfortunately, we are in a kind of deadlock on both,” he said.
The G7 group, which includes the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and Japan, “stands firmly” in favor of what the diplomat described as a “hybrid tribunal,” in which Putin, as well as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, would maintain immunity from prosecution, Kuleba said, stressing that this is absolutely unacceptable for Kiev.
“The special tribunal is needed to create a precedent for punishing the Russian leaders,” he said. “The hybrid tribunal does not answer the question as to how to prosecute those three,” the top diplomat said, noting that he “simply cannot remember” the name of the Russian prime minister.
The Ukrainian foreign minister also said he sees no way to resolve these differences between Kiev and its Western backers. “President [Vladimir Zelensky] has recently asked me what has been done [to push through the idea of a tribunal] and I have admitted for the first time in my ministerial capacity that I cannot suggest a solution,” he said.
Kuleba claims that any legal constraints preventing Kiev from achieving its desired results can be altered. “If a law does not fit an idea of attaining justice, the legislation should be changed,” he said.
Kiev continues to push for Zelensky’s ‘peace formula’, which includes Russia withdrawing from Donbass, Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Crimea, as well as paying reparations to Ukraine and submitting to war crimes tribunals. Moscow has dismissed these demands as “nonsense” and has said it is ready for peace talks that reflect “the reality on the ground.”
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News
Ukraine's Economy Is Starting to Grow, Situation in Key Industries Is Improving – Yuliia Svyrydenko
The Ukrainian Government expects the gross domestic product to grow by 3-4% this year and notes the improvement of a situation in the key industries.
Це міф, що Україну підтримує лише глобальний Захід – Комфорт Еро
Liberating territories, returning people home, bringing war criminals to justice and integrating Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic community: opinion leaders name criteria for Ukraine's victory
Liberating territories, returning people home, bringing war criminals to justice and integrating Ukraine into the Euro-Atlantic community: opinion leaders name criteria for Ukraine's victory
Radoslaw Sikorski: Europe should not seriously count on normalisation of relations with Russia
Russia will never be a democratic country and Europe should not expect to normalise relations with such an aggressive political regime.
We Are Impressed by Ukraine’s Progress in the Counter-Offensive – Victoria Nuland
The Ukrainian counter-offensive is difficult, but the progress achieved, considering the conditions in which it is taking place, is impressive. That was said by the acting US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting “The Future is Being Decided in Ukraine”, organised by YES in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
All the Money Ukraine Earns Is Spent for Defence – Denys Shmyhal
All the money that Ukraine earns is spent to finance defence-related needs as a matter of priority, said Prime Minister of Ukraine Denys Shmyhal at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting “The Future is Being Decided in Ukraine”, organized by YES in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
Everyone should understand that taking care of oneself is not selfishness but responsibility — Olena Zelenska
The mental health problem is relevant for the whole world, and everyone should understand that taking care of oneself is primarily a responsibility, not selfishness.
We Are Fighting for Our Freedom, Our Happiness and Our Future — Military Officers
Our goal is to preserve independent Ukraine and give our children the opportunity to choose their future, said Denys Zaikov, Assistant Chief of Section S-2, 25th Independent Airborne Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, when answering the question about what he was fighting for at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting “The Future is Being Decided in Ukraine”, organized by YES in partnership with the Victor Pinchuk Foundation.
“Everything is burning, there are no unbeatable weapons here. The Russian professional army does not have equipment anywhere as near as advanced as it ‘shows off’ to the world. They show ideas, but the reality is nil.”
The war has not benefited the Putin regime, it is not as powerful as it wants to appear, the economy is failing and Russia's military power has degraded significantly.
15 September 2024
A Conversation with Mike Pompeo: The Future of the US - Ukraine Relation...
After graduating from law school, he worked as a lawyer for Williams & Connolly in Washington.[22]
In 1996, Pompeo moved to Wichita, Kansas, where he and three West Point friends, Brian Bulatao, Ulrich Brechbuhl, and Michael Stradinger, acquired three aircraft-parts manufacturers there (Aero Machine, Precision Profiling, B&B Machine) and in St. Louis (Advance Tool & Die), renaming the entity Thayer Aerospace after West Point superintendent Sylvanus Thayer.[23][24][25][26] Venture funding for the private organization included a nearly 20% investment from Koch Industries[23] as well as Dallas-based Cardinal Investment, and Bain & Company (Brechbuhl worked for Bain at the time).[27][24] Brechbuhl and Stradinger left the company shortly after it was founded, but Pompeo and Bulatao continued.
In 2006, he sold his interest in the company, which by then had been renamed Nex-Tech Aerospace, to Highland Capital Management, which had clients including Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream Aerospace, Cessna Aircraft, Boeing, Spirit AeroSystems and Raytheon Aircraft.[28] Pompeo then became president of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment manufacturer that was also a partner of Koch Industries.[29]
In 2017, when Pompeo became head of the CIA, he named his former business partner, Brian Bulatao, the agency's chief operating officer.[25]
Post-Trump administration (2021–present)
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In January 2021, Pompeo joined the Hudson Institute as a distinguished fellow.[174]
In February 2021, Pompeo founded the Champion American Values PAC (CAVPAC).[175]
Pompeo expressed support for the Biden administration's extension of the withdrawal timeline of U.S. troops from Afghanistan to August 2021. He ultimately distanced himself and the Trump administration from the situation facing Afghanistan post-withdrawal, following the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.[155][176][177][178]
Pompeo was paid by the Taiwanese government-affiliated thinktank Prospect Foundation to deliver a speech on March 4, 2022.[179]: 339 Reporting of Pompeo's pay varied, with $150,000 being the most commonly reported figure.[179]: 339 In his speech, Pompeo called on the United States to recognize the Republic of China as an independent and sovereign country.[179]: 339
In August 2022 it emerged that Pompeo was the target of an assassination plot by Iran.[180]
In January 2023, HarperCollins published Pompeo's memoir of his tenure in the Trump administration, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love.[181]
Pompeo considered a candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination and toured early primary states, but ultimately announced his decision not to run in April 2023.[182]
Alongside David M. Friedman, Pompeo featured in the 2023 documentary Route 60: The Biblical Highway, directed by Matt Crouch.[183]
In 2023, Pompeo joined the board of directors of Cyabra, an Israeli counter-disinformation company which has recorded a 20% revenue growth in recent years.[184]
In October 2023, Pompeo became Of counsel for Texas-based law firm Oberheiden, P.C., a federal criminal defense law firm, joining former US Congressman Trey Gowdy and former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.[185]
- Moderator: Fareed Zakaria, Host, CNN
About YES
For 18 years, YES has initiated dialog between leaders from Ukraine, the EU, the US and beyond. Within Ukraine, it provides a platform for the government and opposition. It brings together leaders from politics, business, media, civil society and the expert community.
YES began in 2004, when Victor Pinchuk invited some 30 European leaders to debate the future of Ukraine and the EU at the first Annual Meeting.
YES Annual Meeting took place at the symbolic Livadia Palace in Yalta from 2004 to 2013.
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The location where Europe was divided in 1945 thus became the venue for uniting a wider Europe.
After the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, the YES Annual Meeting moved to the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
YES meetings have brought together heads of state and government such as Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Bill Clinton, Dalia Grybauskaitė, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Bronisław Komorowski, Mario Monti, Shimon Peres and Donald Trump. Among the speakers were also heads of international organizations like Kofi Annan, José Manuel Barroso, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Ronald Noble, James Wolfensohn, Lamberto Zannier and Robert Zoellick. Senior officials, such as Hillary Clinton, Valdis Dombrovskis, Robert Gates, Johannes Hahn, Chrystia Freeland, Victoria Nuland, Condoleezza Rice and Martin Schulz, have spoken at the meetings. In addition, thinkers and social leaders like Richard Branson, German Gref, Richard Haass, Niall Ferguson, Alexei Kudrin, Arthur Laffer, Yurii Milner, Larry Summers, Nouriel Roubini and Strobe Talbott have been among the panelists. Presidents and Prime Ministers of Ukraine, as well as Ukraine’s political, business and social leaders, regularly speak at the meetings.
The YES board includes
- Aleksander Kwaśniewski, President of Poland (1995-2005), Chairman of the YES Board;
- Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Sweden (2006-2014), Prime Minister of Sweden (1991-1994);
- Pat Cox, President of the European Parliament (2002-2004), Member of the European Parliament (1989-2004);
- Stephane Fouks, Vice President of Havas Group, Executive Co-Chairman of Havas Worldwide;
- Wolfgang Ischinger, Ambassador, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Senior Professor, Hertie School of Governance;
- Victor Pinchuk, Founder and Member of the Board, YES and Founder of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation and EastOne group;
- Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Founder of Rasmussen Global, Secretary General of NATO (2009-2014),
10 September 2023
Acting US Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) Annual Meeting
We Are Impressed by Ukraine’s Progress in the Counter-Offensive – Victoria Nuland
28 January 2024
What if Ukraine Loses?”. Carl Bildt, Yehor Cherniev, Niall Ferguson, Valerii Pekar, Co-Founder, Nova Kraina.
Message of compassion for Ukrainians not enough already, it’s necessary to convince partners of their interest in Ukraine's victory – Pinchuk
The national interest of the United States, Poland, Lithuania and many other countries lies in helping Ukraine defeat its "crazy enemy", it is necessary to convince partners of this, since previous arguments about the expediency of helping Ukraine are already working worse, businessman and philanthropist Victor Pinchuk said at the opening of the project "Your Country First – Win with Us" on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday.
"In the previous three years, in 2022, 2023, 2024, we tried to get under the skin of those who make decisions with a message of compassion for brave Ukrainians. We tried to show here Russia's war crimes, the suffering of Ukrainians, and... it worked: we understood that if Western decision makers saw this, they would supply more weapons and faster, and it worked, but now it almost doesn't work, because people in the West very often think, no, we have already helped Ukrainians a lot. Of course, we are together with Ukrainians, it's a pity that brave Ukrainians are suffering so much, but we have our own problems," Pinchuk explained the change in the theme of the exhibition at the WEF-2025.
"Therefore, we organized this exhibition to show that it is in your deepest national interests to fight, you cannot let our insane enemy win," the businessman stressed.
According to him, not everyone likes the words that "your country is first," because someone thinks that this is isolationism. However, Pinchuk believes that it is the duty of every head of state to put the interests of his country first.
"But if your national interest is first and foremost, it means that Ukraine must win, because national security is at the top of the United States' priorities, and this means that America cannot allow our crazy enemy to win in Ukraine.… You must fight for your national interests here, and this is our message for this 2025 exhibition," Pinchuk said.
He drew attention to one of the works at the exhibition, which shows how easy it is to destroy the beautiful Western world if you don't fight for it.
Another piece of art that opens the exhibition is the riddled name of the village of Volia on the front line.
"Volia means freedom and will at the same time in Ukrainian. This means that if you want to protect and preserve your freedom, you must have the will. Please have the will to win together with Ukraine!" Pinchuk summed up.
World’s Billionaires: Victor Pinchuk
#336 overall
#2 in Ukraine
$3.3 B
Net Worth Calculated March 2011
- Age: 50
- Source: steel pipes, self-made
- Residence: Kiev, Ukraine
- Country of citizenship: Ukraine
- Education: PHD, Dniepropetrovsk Metallurgical Institute
- Marital Status: Married
- Children: 2
Profile
Lavished $5 million on himself and his wife for a joint birthday party in Courchevel, France that featured acrobats from Cirque de Soleil and celebrities including Steven Spielberg.
A week earlier in Kiev, announced the winner of his $100,000 art prize for young artists; Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Miuccia Prada were on hand for the fete.
Seventh year hobnobbing at Davos.
Meanwhile his pipemaker Interpipe struggling to refinance reported $900 million in debt.
- Instead using proceeds from 2008 sale of his Ukrsotsbank to Italy's UniCredit Group for $2.2 billion to create investment portfolio.
- New ventures include insurance and oil explorer Geo-Alliance, which he considered IPOing on the Polish bourse in December.
- Son-in-law of ex-president Leonid Kuchma used his Ph.D. in pipe design to found Interpipe in 1990.
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