President’s Speech at the Fifth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen

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Thank you very much!

Glory to Ukraine!

Olena,

All the participants of the Summit,

Our guests - the First Ladies and Gentlemen from Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Serbia, and Germany,

Dear Alex,

Thank you so much! Thank you very much for your support, for your participation.

Above all, thank you for being with Ukraine and in Ukraine, and for the fact that all of this - our Fifth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen - is taking place, and it is important that it is taking place, despite everything, despite the air raid alerts and threats. The Summit is dedicated to what matters most - to what must indeed prevail in this war. Of course, independence. Of course, our sovereign state. Of course, our extraordinarily brave people. But all of this is united by humanity. That's what it is. Humanity must prevail.

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Sometimes we hear from politicians - and the further they are from the real situation, the more confident they sound - that what divides Ukraine and Russia most of all is the issue of territory. As if that were the key issue in the war. Of course, we are fighting for our land, we are defending our sovereign territory, and that is absolutely just. But we must look at what Russia actually brings to our land. And it is always striking: the closer Russia gets, the less life there is, any kind of life - there are simply fewer people, fewer things related to people, fewer things that make people happy. And always, the closer Russia gets, the more lives are destroyed, sadly, the more traces of life that once was but has now become ruins. The territories of ours that Russia has seized, our lands, often become simply depopulated. Even Donetsk - once one of the richest, strongest cities in Ukraine - the Russians have managed to bring to a state where living there normally is simply impossible. And all of this is not only about Ukraine.

Over the course of the XX century, the Moscow state took control of different territories, and everywhere one can make the very same comparison: what it is like there, in Russia or under Russian control, and what it is like with their neighbors. Right next door - yet entirely, completely different. For example, Karelia and Finland. The "Kaliningrad Oblast" and the voivodeships of Poland or the lands of Germany. We see how different everything is in Belarus compared with Lithuania. How different everything we do on our land is from what Russia does on our temporarily occupied territory. From all of this it is clear that the dividing line between us and Russia is precisely the attitude toward people, which determines everything else. Either humanity matters, and life is built on that very foundation, or only one person matters, the one who decides everything - and accordingly, for others, there is no normal life. This is what Russia brings. And the man who leads it.

And what will come after this man?

The theme of the Summit is education. And not just the education system, but the belief that education can protect humanity, prevent wars, and strengthen peace. Is this really possible?

All of us can find information about Putin's teachers. Russian propagandists often liked to show his German teacher. An experienced person, clearly proud of her student. She taught Putin German - but she could not teach him to be European. Putin graduated from Leningrad University with a degree in law. But how could this "lawyer" rule Russia in such a way that he ended up under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court? And for what - for the abduction of Ukrainian children. We know that Putin gained his basic notions of morality in a sports club - from his coach. And he was not just a judo coach, but more of a coach in the criminal code of conduct - in the corresponding attitude toward life and other people. This was Putin's coach. But then how did it happen that millions of Russians, who did not have such a coach, have a similar mindset to their ruler?
We are dealing with something far deeper than the biography of one man or the politics of one killer. We are dealing with something rooted in Russia's culture - something that inevitably drives it to war. Which of Russia's neighbors has it not yet fought with? All of them. Even China they once tried to humiliate and colonize - there was a time when they tried to take over Manchuria and other territories of China. Can Russian schoolchildren or students today learn, in the course of their education, about this true history of Russia? Of course not. Russia's political dishonesty is largely built on its academic dishonesty - on the dishonesty of those who teach its children. There have been numerous wars of conquest in Russia's history, but has Russia ever apologized for even one of them? Of course not. No apologies. Instead, Russia's confidence that new wars will go unpunished is based in particular on the examples like the one we see now in Georgia, where, regrettably, the behavior of those in power and their treatment of political opponents resembles Russian rule more than European governance. And is criminal disregard for life no longer in favor in Russia? On the contrary - they cultivate it. And we see at the front that the code of criminals in the Russian army matters more than the statutes of the Russian armed forces. And this is not only about the "Wagner" units - it is about many other Russian units. About how they shoot their own men when they try to leave the battlefield. About how they throw people into pits when they try to defend their rights. About how they loot their own, abuse civilians, and torture prisoners.

This is what lies in Russia's culture - what breeds "putins," what teaches them to despise people and humanity - and this continues to exist and even to grow stronger. That is why it is so difficult to reach an agreement with Russia on peace. That is why trade with Russia, economic cooperation, or any joint projects will not help deter Russia from war, but will only give it money for a new one. This is how Russia educates its people - in schools, in sports clubs, in universities, but also, sadly, in many families and through products of mass culture. And this is a major lesson for all of us - for those who want protection from Russia and guaranteed security for our children. As long as Russian schools do not teach humanity, agreements with Russia will not work. As long as Russian universities can count international criminals among their distinguished graduates, all of us - Russia's neighbors - must take care of our security. And if Russia continues in this way, we must all think about how to continue limiting its influence on our countries, on our economies, on our culture, on our media, on our education - on our children. That is why, when we talk about isolating Russia for the war, we are speaking of much more than sanctions alone. We are in fact speaking of self-defense - of preserving people and humanity in our countries.

We need family policies and support for families in our countries that would give parents greater opportunities to see how their children are growing up and what their lives revolve around. We need far more connections between countries not only at the level of politics, but also at the level of communities, at the level of our people. And this includes school exchanges and opportunities for students. We must pay attention to everything - from the content children watch to cooperation at the university level, if it involves the academic environment or any other environment in Russia. That is, people who have not found the strength to condemn this war of aggression, even though they have all the information, all the truth about it. We must be modern in advancing truthful historical knowledge. Russia is modern in advancing propaganda, and we must respond not only with textbooks but also with mass culture. Yesterday, by the way, I had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Ukraine, the Minister of Finance, and our team in the cultural sphere, and we spoke in particular about this - about creating content. Thousands upon thousands of hours of content that must be an alternative to Russian content. This is the task of every country - to consciously support its culture, its education, its families. And to do so on the basis of respect for people, for the human, for humanity.

My first teacher was in Mongolia. My father worked there, and that's where I went to school, to the first grade. We were very different children in the class, completely different, from different corners of the world: from Mongolia, from Buryatia, from Ukraine, from other countries. The very first thing the teacher taught us was to be together - to be side by side, to accept and respect each other. To talk to each other. So that we, as children, could coexist without conflict, in peace. And in my view, she succeeded. It is important for our countries to always succeed in this. No matter how different children are, they must learn to be Europeans.

I studied at university and got a degree in law. I was not particularly eager to become a lawyer. But it turned out that jurisprudence nevertheless appeared in my life. And many important laws and decrees today, state regulations, various procedures, work with partners, international organizations and institutions. And among other things, we did manage to bring the Russian leader under an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. He deserved it. And it is important that this works in our countries - the inevitability of punishment, the sense of justice, and therefore proper legal education. So that we are different from the "specialists" of Leningrad University.

Maybe this is too much about myself, but still… My father is a Master of Sports and a Doctor of Technical Sciences. He is a professor, a university lecturer. He has devoted his whole life to education. He always tells me: knowledge is very important, but degrees are not. Even though he himself has both titles and degrees. I have done sports all my life. I did not become a Master of Sports, but it helps me a lot - especially now, when the ability to be disciplined means the ability to be effective. And many issues have to be studied very carefully, especially when it comes to security and weapons. Often Ukraine's knowledge of the availability of certain weapons among our partners is better than that of the partners themselves. And this is what helps us endure for so long in the full-scale war. In Ukraine, we hold on because millions of our people know how to do something better than others. They know what self-discipline is. They know that knowledge wins. They learned this at home. They learned this in school. They learned this at university. Many - at sports clubs, but the kind that are truly about sport, not about criminal code of conduct. In the end, we must prevail both in the field of law and in the field of culture - and therefore in the field of education - in order to maintain our advantage in the sphere of security. And it is important that we see this challenge in the same way - all of us, different, yet the same: humanity must prevail.

Thank you.

Glory to Ukraine!

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ph	The Fifth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen 11 September 2025 - 11:05