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Now Ukraine and Stefanishina have a real chance of whether the country will survive.
Stefanishina said that for Ukraine, it is “returning to the origins of the European family” and “getting rid of the burdens of the post-Soviet era, this legacy of oppression and suffering.”
As Ukrainian forces try to hold off Russia’s continued onslaught, Stefanishina and other diplomats launch their own offensive to maintain Ukraine’s independence and identity by clearing the way forward in Brussels – despite much quieter reluctance from concerned EU countries. How could such a large and impoverished new member state be diverting resources from its own people?
That reluctance was exposed this week when France and Poland joined forces to push for restrictions on imports from Ukraine amid protests by their own farmers demanding more aid. Agriculture is Ukraine’s most important industry, and although the country’s economy is in ruins, Kiev has little ability to complain.
Stefanishina spent the war years traveling back and forth between Kiev and Brussels.If her 3 hour flight is easy she can take this far Due to the constant threat of missile attacks, it takes more than 20 hours to travel from the Ukrainian capital, which has no operational airport, to the very peaceful EU capital.
In Kiev, he works in a government building barricaded with sandbags and checkpoints, and metal bars sometimes come down on his office windows when air raid sirens sound.
She was separated from her children for months when the invasion began. Some nights now, she puts her children in her car and sleeps in the parking lot that has been turned into an air raid shelter.
Meanwhile, it’s business as usual in Brussels. Leaders gather. The transaction is completed. “Country and destiny are just files,” she said. This dynamic requires her to carefully communicate her country’s interests, constantly walking a fine line between asking and pleading, even as Ukrainians return home under shelling. It means that it must be done.
“So are we,” she said around the negotiating table.
“The difference is… that when we return to Kiev, we are in a country at war,” she said. “We are on the brink of survival.”
The challenges ahead are bureaucratic and existential. The EU imposes a number of reforms on would-be member countries to bring their laws into line with the bloc’s vast rulebook. Countries need to rebuild their institutions and markets from top to bottom. Even under the best conditions, this process can take more than a decade.
For Ukraine to succeed, it will need to overcome opposition from an overtly pro-Russian leader and from isolationists who think the EU club is big enough. It also means living to fight and negotiate another day – while also asking the same countries that must decide on membership to pay for ammunition and weapons and take in war refugees. .
“When you hear that Ukrainians are impatient, nervous and ungrateful, that’s normal,” Stefanishina said. “We are a very grateful people…but it’s just like, ‘My children are living under a barrage of bombs.'”
Born in Odessa, then part of the Soviet Union, Stefanishina was a young child when Ukraine declared independence in 1991. She was a university student when Ukrainians took to the streets in 2004 and 2005 to protest election fraud by pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych. attempted to usurp her presidential position from her rival Viktor Yushchenko.
The movement that became known as the Orange Revolution shaped her both politically and personally. Her parents took part in the protests and for the first time shared with her painful details of her family’s past, explaining how the Soviet Union persecuted her relatives.
These hopeful protests were “a sign to them that Ukraine exists,” she said.
She graduated from law school in 2008 and worked at the Ministry of Justice, laying the legal foundations for close cooperation between the EU and Ukraine.
At that time, EU membership was not on the table. “The only possible step” was a political association agreement and a free trade agreement with the EU, she recalled. Yanukovych was elected president in 2010 with a promise to sign the agreement. But in November 2013, she came under pressure from Russia that made her hesitate. Stefanisina said she remembers watching the news on TV while playing with her young daughter at home and thinking, “Okay, then people will come to the streets.” ing.
Throughout the protests known as Euromaidan, she spent days in her office and nights and weekends in Kiev’s Independence Square. Her parents came from Odessa and brought their daughter into the crowd. She still gets chills when she talks about how her own children took part in protests that quickly turned violent. Police killed more than 100 demonstrators. Yanukovych abandoned her job and fled to Russia.
In the following weeks, Russia invaded and illegally annexed Crimea, then fomented war in the eastern Donbass region. What Stefanishina takes away from Yanukovych’s decision and its violent aftermath is a lesson about Ukrainian resolve and Russian miscalculation.
“We have that in our blood now,” she said. “It’s an understanding that we are the only ones leading the way.”
When Russia invaded on February 24, 2022, Stefanisina, now deputy prime minister, sent her children to Slovakia to stay with their paternal grandparents and joined other officials to coordinate the response. He also visited Western Ukraine.
“I saw everything we had built for 10 years disappear,” she recalls. “Roads, buildings, and people’s lives disappeared.”
But she also knew that Putin’s attack would make her job more urgent. Applying to join the EU could preserve the country’s progress on rights and democratic norms “at least in our memories,” she said.
Four days later, on February 28, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy asked the EU for early accession, a request many European diplomats dismissed as preposterous. President Zelenskiy often made urgent appeals to leaders via video call from war-torn Kiev.
After Russian troops withdrew from Kyiv’s suburbs in late March, Stefanishina traded his suit and heels for a military uniform and guided European visitors through the destroyed suburbs where Russian troops had executed civilians.
In June, the EU granted candidate status to Ukraine. An emotional Zelenskiy called it a “victory” that his country has been striving for not only since the invasion, but also since its independence in 1991. “We have been waiting for 120 days and 30 years,” he said. .
An EU official told the Washington Post in June that Ukraine had prompted more moves from the bloc in two weeks “than in the past 25 years.”
Stefanisina was surprised by the speed. Before the war, she said, “we never even thought of applying.”
In a positive momentum, she took her children back to Kiev.
Stefanisina has spent most of her life preparing for this moment. But on a drizzly December morning, the situation in Brussels looked bleak.
Just before EU leaders were expected to approve the start of accession talks with Ukraine, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán threatened to block the process.
Russian hackers had just destroyed Ukraine’s largest telephone network and disconnected Stefanishina from Kiev. Zelenskiy was calling non-stop for updates and connected to Wi-Fi to stay in touch.
While preparing for the intense discussion, she was filled with fear about what a “no” would mean at home. Two days later, EU leaders persuaded Orbán to step down at a critical moment, leaving other leaders to vote on a deal with Ukraine.
The question is whether Ukraine can maintain its momentum. Although Prime Minister Orbán has succumbed to the talks, he and others will have ample opportunity to thwart Ukraine in the coming years.
No matter what happens, Stefanisina said she will keep fighting. “Wars should last as long as necessary,” she said. “Until victory is won.”
Mr. Rauhara reported from Brussels and Mr. O’Grady from Kiev. Anastasia Galushka in Kyiv contributed to this report.
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