Four Ukrainian leaders — including former Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk — urged democratic nations to unite against Russia at a Monday panel commemorating the three-year anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The event, titled “Three Years of War: Updates from Ukraine” and hosted by Stanford’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL), brought together four Ukrainian leaders to discuss the effects of the war and the country’s future. CDDRL hosted the same four speakers for similar panels exactly one and two years ago.

“Only together can we achieve sustainable peace for Ukraine and sustainable peace for Europe,” Honcharuk said.

The conflict has killed over 12,300 Ukrainian civilians, wounded 30,000 and displaced 10.2 million in the past three years. The United States has provided $65.9 billion in military assistance since Feb. 24, 2022. However, today, in a striking shift in American foreign policy, the U.S. joined Russia in voting against a UN resolution condemning the war on Ukraine.

Michael McFaul ’86 M.A. ’86 — director of the Freeman Spogli Institute (FSI), a political science professor and the former U.S. ambassador to Russia — moderated the talk.

The speakers emphasized that the conflict was about more than Russia and Ukraine, with national security implications for Europe, the United States and the rest of the world.

Honcharuk said he hoped foreign governments would recognize this reality and extend their full support to Ukraine, warning that a third world war could result otherwise.

Political science professor Kathryn Stoner, the director of CDDRL, introduced the panel. In her remarks, Stoner acknowledged the number of Ukrainian deaths, casualties and people displaced, while also highlighting the country’s resilience. 

“Ukraine is not losing. Ukraine is at least defending what it has,” Stoner said.

The front line of the conflict has not moved since Dec. 2022, when Ukrainian forces took back Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and other occupied territories, Stoner added. In fact, Russia has only gained about 1% of Ukrainian land in the past three years.

Oleksandra Matviichuk, founder of the human rights organization the Center for Civil Liberties, said that to live during a large-scale war means to live in constant fear for your loved ones.

Despite the fearful mood in her home city of Kyiv, Matviichuk said that Ukrainians continue to fight for their country. “We literally have no other choice, because if we stop resisting Russian oppression … it means that we will cease to exist,” she said.

Matviichuk said that Russian occupation would not only mean exchanging one state flag for another, but would lead to disappearances, torture, the forcible adoption of children, filtration camps, mass rape and other human rights abuses.

“For Ukrainians, it’s not just a battle for territories. We are fighting for people who live there. It’s our relatives, it’s our members of families, it’s our friends, it’s our colleagues, it’s human beings,” Matviichuk said. “We can’t leave them alone … we have no moral right.”

Oleksandra Ustinova, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament, criticized President Donald Trump’s characterization of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a dictator, explaining the risk associated with holding elections in Ukraine.

To hold elections, Ukraine would have to arrange a ceasefire deal with Russia and repeal martial law. 400,000 conscripted men would consequently be released from the Ukrainian army. Many would leave the country once its borders opened to visit their families abroad, leaving Ukraine vulnerable to attack.

More than half of the population would also find themselves unable to vote, as over seven million Ukrainians have moved overseas since 2022. According to Ustinova, Russia would likely intervene in the elections by financially backing a candidate who would sign a treaty beneficial to them.

“It’s not an election, it’s a trap,” she said.

While attending the event via Zoom, Ustinova heard a missile strike from her apartment in Kyiv, offering the audience a glimpse into her daily reality.

Serhiy Leshchenko, an advisor to Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said he expects the U.S. to finish negotiating a minerals deal with Ukraine in the coming weeks, under which the U.S. will pay hundreds of billions of dollars for a share of Ukraine’s mineral wealth.

Leshchenko also mentioned the possibility for UN peacekeeping forces to be brought into cities near the front lines. Matviichuk, however, pointed to the historical failure of peacekeeping operations in other parts of the world, such as Rwanda.

McFaul spoke highly of the panelists, all of whom have been scholars or fellows at FSI. “We are extremely fortunate to be connected to who I consider to be heroic individuals in the world,” he said.

Jeffrey Krupa, a postdoctoral researcher at SLAC National Accelerator who attended the event, was equally impressed by the speakers. “It was so cool to have all these really influential people … share all their thoughts about what the next weeks will look like with the peace negotiations,” he said. “It was a very sober and serious event, and very thought-provoking.”

Above all, the panel stressed the urgency of the situation. “This is the best moment – today, not tomorrow, but today … to do everything possible to make sure that Ukraine is strong enough to resist,” Honcharuk said.