PREAMBLE

Ukraine is currently going through a period that will determine its future: a war for the existential survival of the state continues, alongside an internal, intense, and not always publicly articulated societal debate about what this state should become after the war. A serious discussion has become necessary concerning the need for a fundamental transformation of the country, a reconsideration of its path, and the definition of a new social contract around which the country can continue to develop and prevail. This document is a preliminary attempt to formulate the fundamental principles around which a public discussion concerning the social contract and the common good may take place.

The Origins of This Document

On 2 June 2026, an academic and practical conference was held at which philosophers, sociologists, scholars of religion, and national security experts independently explored the nature of the common good for Ukraine. Their conclusions differed significantly in emphasis, but the main point remained common to all: the common good for Ukraine requires careful study and definition. It must not be developed by one person or even by one team; it must grow out of the inner life of Ukrainian society itself.

The Youth Forum brought together six teams of young people representing different regions, experiences, and perspectives around six themes: values, virtues, justice, identity, the state, and civil society. The result was a Declaration, the first consciously incomplete step towards formulating common principles of the good. This document, The Common Good, consolidates the results of the two stages into a single structure.

A series of public webinars has now begun, featuring prominent public intellectuals who address important issues of social life and test the ideas of the Declaration and the document The Common Good against lived social experience. Following the completion of the webinars, we plan to supplement the document The Common Good in light of the webinar presentations. It should become an honest and responsible outcome of a genuine process of reflection involving people of different ages, professions, and experiences, in which every proposition has been tested through objection.

What This Document Is and What It Is Not

We avoid the temptation to offer Ukraine a single vision of the future that would be binding on everyone. Any attempt to impose one vision from above contradicts the very idea of the common good. We analyse where the main lines of tension in Ukrainian society lie today; identify a core of values capable of containing this tension without tearing the country apart; examine models of the future that already effectively coexist in the public consciousness; define the conditions of a new social contract among the state, the community, business, and every individual citizen; and propose a specific mechanism through which these conditions may be implemented, tested, and, where necessary, revised.

Central Thesis

At least three different things are concealed behind the expression “the common good.” The common good here is neither consensus on everything nor a single normative formula, but the ability of a community to sustain the tension between the first and the second simultaneously without disintegrating. The unity of a people has never been, and never will be, identical with uniformity of views. It is the ability to remain within one conversation despite profound and sometimes acute disagreement, without proceeding to the destruction of one’s opponent. The common good is not a condition in which everyone agrees, but the work that allows disagreement to remain a conversation.

The structure of the text is built on this thesis: recognition of how profound disagreement is today in Part I; the search for a minimal but genuine core around which this disagreement can be contained within a common conversation in Part II; and practical instruments through which this conversation is transformed into a capable state and a mature society in Parts III–V.

PART I. DIAGNOSIS: THE CONDITION OF SOCIETY AND THE STATE TODAY

Our strategy begins with defining the condition in which Ukrainian society has found itself. This part of the document is deliberately devoid of an optimistic tone: honesty is the only solid foundation for a realistic strategy.

1.1. Three Dimensions of the Common Good

At least three different things are concealed behind the expression “the common good,” and their conflation is one of the principal sources of misunderstanding in public debate.

The first is a consensual interest: that which benefits every individual member of society separately and on which there is actual agreement, such as health, security, or well-being. This is a good that can be calculated as the sum of satisfied private needs.

The second is the interest of society as a whole, which cannot be reduced to the sum of separate interests even when every individual interest has been satisfied: trust between regions and the ability of the community not to disintegrate. Here, the whole is not equal to the sum of its parts, just as a healthy organism is something different from merely the sum of healthy organs.

The third is a normative value that operates independently of agreement: freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law. It is binding even when there is no actual agreement concerning it and when society acts unlawfully. It therefore determines why it is important not merely to preserve the state, but to make it a state governed by law.

The Ukrainian state and society have learned well the consensual interest of individual survival: we often place our own good and the good of our families first. The importance of society as a whole and of the state, as well as the normative good, remain largely unreflected upon by citizens, not because of malicious intent, but because an institutional habit of posing this question directly has not yet developed. The diagnosis set out below describes this lack of reflection in specific and observable forms.

1.2. The Gap between Citizens’ Expectations and Institutional Capacity

Ukrainian society has developed a clear system of expectations. Security now means not only defence capability, but also the resilience of infrastructure, energy systems, and the information space. Justice requires the cleansing of institutions from impunity and a transition from declarative to genuine accountability. A dignified life has acquired specific meaning: decent conditions for veterans, displaced persons, and the families of the fallen; fair earnings; and accessible healthcare. Modernisation is understood as evidence of the nation’s maturity, rather than merely as the restoration of what has been destroyed. Society recognises the new experience of solidarity born of the war as the basis of an order in which citizens are co-creators of policy.

Institutional reality responds to these demands only partially. Prolonged operation under emergency conditions has exhausted the system of governance: decisions are made quickly, but not always thoughtfully, while responsibility is blurred between levels of authority. Corruption remains the main barrier to trust, and its manifestation in defence or reconstruction has a destructive effect disproportionate to the incident itself. The state faces a shortage of financial, personnel, and administrative resources and depends on external financing. The civil service is experiencing a crisis of motivation: some professionals have left the country, others are exhausted, and younger personnel see no prospects in working in public service. Centres of genuine effectiveness arise primarily at the intermediate level in communities, military administrations, and volunteer networks, often in spite of the system. Political uncertainty regarding the post-war legitimacy of the authorities is already shifting the emphasis from development to self-preservation.

1.3. Social Obstacles

Because of fatigue and uncertainty, which make survival the only available horizon of planning, a significant part of society perceives the post-war future as a process that someone else should carry out. Another part preserves an inherited habit of adapting to any conditions, for which stability is more important than the justice of the conditions themselves. Part of society is vulnerable to disinformation and simplified explanations, for which the moral meaning of victory and defeat gives way to the argument that “the shooting should simply stop.” Cynical influence groups perceive the war and reconstruction as a resource-related rather than an ethical event. Those who are traumatised and disappointed – veterans, displaced persons, and families of the fallen – risk transforming their experience of institutional indifference into profound, unarticulated resistance to the state itself.

These roots reach deeper than the current institutional crisis. Ukrainians’ tendency to rely primarily on themselves and their immediate circle is not an innate character trait, but the consequence of collective trauma accumulated over generations: dekulakisation, deportations, and occupations in which everything a person had acquired could disappear in a single day. The Soviet legacy of “everyone for themselves” deepened this habit, and a significant part of today’s institutional weakness and tolerance of corruption grew out of it. The same roots have created a barrier to reform: people who enter public service with a sincere intention to change something encounter a system that grinds down integrity, the unwritten rule “do not stand out,” clan-based networks, and salaries on which it is impossible to live. A third consequence is the fragmentation of resources and unhealthy competition among civil society organisations, which compete against one another for the same limited resources of attention and funding instead of working towards a common objective.

1.4. Factors of Post-War Dynamics

The militarisation of public consciousness elevates security and strength to the status of fundamental criteria for evaluating any institution, shifting expectations towards authoritarian decisiveness at the expense of openness and law. Mass trauma and collective fatigue make citizens simultaneously more vulnerable to manipulation and more sensitive to the slightest injustice. Millions of Ukrainians abroad are forming a new, hybrid civic identity. Regional asymmetry among frontline areas, the rear, and zones of relative tranquillity creates new lines of misunderstanding over old ones. The dependence of reconstruction on external partners places the state between the demand for sovereignty and the external pressure of conditionalities.

1.5. Five Lines of Conflict in Living Practice

These tensions have already manifested themselves in specific, public, documented situations that accompanied the preparation of this document.

The dispute concerning the Ukrainian National Pantheon is not a question of architecture or a list of names, but of what kind of country we wish to become tomorrow: one that is open to the complex and sometimes contradictory truth about its own past, including figures whose legacy provokes disagreement even within the country, or one focused on a narrowed list of indisputable, unifying figures that consciously avoids controversy for the sake of wartime unity.

The clashes between representatives of Territorial Recruitment Centres and civilians in Lviv revealed the asymmetry of burden and privilege and, at the same time, a sign of maturity: the residents surveyed did not fully justify either side, holding two truths simultaneously.

The almost unanimous support for Ukrainian as the state language, at 83 per cent, coexists with uneven everyday linguistic practices in different regions. This demonstrates a gap between value and practice that is not identical with division so long as it remains a subject of conversation rather than compulsory unification.

One of the youth teams at the forum, which worked on the subject of identity, honestly acknowledged that it had not reached agreement regarding the division between the east and west of the country. In our view, this honesty reflects the actual state of affairs more accurately than an enforced consensus.

Another cross-cutting line concerns not a particular conflict, but the very mechanism through which society interacts with the state. In July 2025, a law restricting the independence of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine and the Specialised Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office triggered the largest protests of the wartime period; within several days, the state introduced amendments that restored the independence of these bodies. Exactly one year later, in July 2026, the dismissal of Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov against the background of his conflict with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi over unresolved mobilisation problems provoked spontaneous protests that participants called the “Cardboard Maidan.” After six days of street pressure, the President announced the dismissal of the Commander-in-Chief and appointed General Mykhailo Drapatyi to the position.

Both cases share one feature: civil society influences state personnel and policy decisions not through a permanent and predictable channel, but only at a moment of acute emotional eruption, when a particular decision crosses the threshold of tolerance. Between such eruptions, the role of civic participation in state decision-making remains weak and almost invisible. This is the most precise empirical evidence of the thin layer of values, in which trust in institutions and procedural integrity are protected not by permanent procedures, but by a spontaneous and unpredictable explosion because no permanent procedure for this yet exists.

It is precisely this unpredictability of social and political life, rather than the existence of disagreement itself, that constitutes the strongest practical argument in favour of a new social contract: not in order to eliminate protest as a democratic instrument, but to place alongside it permanent and predictable channels of participation capable of absorbing tension before it reaches the streets.

1.6. Conclusion

Taken together, the divisions described above could present a picture of a society on the verge of disintegration. We reject such an interpretation. Each of the conflicts mentioned – concerning the Pantheon, mobilisation, linguistic practice, and the “Cardboard Maidan” – simultaneously demonstrates a lack of specific virtues at the moment of action, above all moderation and prudence; the fact that civil society in Ukraine is still being formed; and the very process of forming the virtues that are currently lacking – responsibility and patience towards the opinions of others. A community cannot learn these things except by passing through real disagreement: what constitutes the tradition of a people becomes visible not from a textbook, but from the way in which it is defended anew each time in a living dispute about its own foundations. The task of this document is to propose a core of values and a mechanism capable of keeping these conflicts within the boundaries of conversation.

PART II. THE CORE OF VALUES

Part I demonstrated the depth of disagreement. This part seeks that which allows a society containing such disagreement to remain one society on two levels, the personal and the collective, neither of which is sufficient without the other.

2.1. Three Pillars at the Personal Level

Values answer the question of what is worth striving for: that which we recognise as good in itself, with human dignity being the first such example. Virtues answer the question of what kind of person one must become in order to achieve this: a stable disposition of character formed through practice rather than proclaimed on a single occasion, almost always the golden mean between extremes; for example, courage is neither the absence of fear nor thoughtless risk. Justice answers the question of how to distribute burden and benefit fairly among those concerned: unlike values and virtues, which may exist in a solitary person, justice is by definition a relationship between at least two people.

None of the three pillars can replace the others. Values without virtues that embody them in action remain words. Personal virtue without a just order saves an individual soul, but not a country. Formally just procedures without shared values degenerate into empty bureaucracy.

2.2. Three Pillars at the Collective Level

The common good of a country requires three further pillars, which concern not two people but millions: identity, the state, and civil society.

Identity answers the question of who we are: a common image simultaneously held in the minds of millions of people, although most of them will never meet personally, an image that is constantly rewritten by each generation without losing continuity. The state answers the question of how order is organised: law and legal order regulating interaction between citizens and institutions, and the totality of millions of daily encounters between citizens and representatives of the state, whose quality determines trust in it. Civil society answers the question of what we do together when the state is not watching us: horizontal trust and skills of cooperation developed through practice rather than established by decree.

A strong identity without a capable state remains a dream without an institutional body. A state without a living civil society degenerates into an indifferent machine of coercion. Civic activity without a shared sense of “we” disperses into disconnected good deeds.

2.3. The Minimal Core and Legitimate Diversity

It is a mistake to require society to reach complete agreement on all six pillars simultaneously. Such agreement does not exist in any living, non-authoritarian society; the demand to attain it leads either to compulsory unification or to chronic disappointment.

It is more productive to distinguish two layers of social concord. The thin layer is a small set of principles genuinely shared by practically everyone: dignity; justice understood as fair distribution and responsibility; freedom from arbitrary coercion; and solidarity in hardship. This list emerged independently from several sources within the project: the conclusions of the forum, the philosophical work developed in the webinars, and the analytical examination of citizens’ expectations. Its repeated, independent appearance is empirical evidence that such a layer genuinely exists and is not merely a desirable invention.

The thick layer consists of substantive, culturally charged answers: whom to regard as a hero, which language to speak at home, and how to understand one’s duty to the state. Yet the thick layer is itself not uniform: its different areas, by their nature, require different principles of coordination. The question of language and the question of military duty cannot be resolved by the same rule, just as the distribution of material resources for reconstruction and the distribution of symbolic recognition follow different logics, even when both take place within the same thick layer. An attempt to impose a single answer where different spheres with their own logic are actually operating deepens division rather than overcoming it.

The social contract set out in Part IV is built exclusively on the thin layer. The thick layer remains a space of permanent conversation that is never finally resolved and is divided into its own spheres that cannot be reduced to one another.

2.4. Unity through Procedure

A society divided within the thick layer remains united not through coercion to think alike, but through a fair and transparent procedure under which disagreement is discussed without interrupting common life. The thin layer defines the boundaries of what is permissible: violence, the humiliation of dignity, and the arbitrary deprivation of rights lie beyond these boundaries. Procedure – free elections, an independent judiciary, the right to peaceful resistance, and transparency of decisions—allows the conversation to continue without destroying the country.

The second rule is that not every decision is made at the national level. Where an issue concerns a community and does not affect the thin core, the decision remains at the level closest to it that is capable of addressing it effectively; the state intervenes only where the lower level is objectively unable to cope. This is a more precise definition of where the strength of the state is required, rather than a weakening of the state.

The thin common core and a fair procedure for thick, multi-sphere disagreement, supplemented by the distribution of decisions among different levels, constitute the value-based core of the contract, which is developed in the models of the future in Part III, the conditions of the contract in Part IV, and the implementation mechanism in Part V.

PART III. FIVE MODELS OF THE FUTURE

Several models of the country’s post-war development already coexist in the public consciousness. They are genuinely present and competing visions, each with its own logic, advantages, and vulnerabilities.

3.1. Overview of the Models

The European integration model is based on the conviction that the guarantee of the country’s resilience lies in integration into the political, economic, and legal space of the European Union, giving priority to the rule of law, institutional transparency, and the market economy. The strength of this model lies in its predictability, while its vulnerability lies in the risk of formal imitation without the internal assimilation of its principles. The Baltic countries following their accession to the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization demonstrate the positive aspect of this model: institutional discipline genuinely changed the quality of public administration from within. Bulgaria and Romania also demonstrate the reverse: formal membership of the European Union did not in itself eliminate corruption or the weakness of the judicial system where the internal assimilation of principles did not take place.

The nation-centred model places the country’s political, cultural, and economic sovereignty at its centre. It is based on the self-sufficiency of the state, the protection of identity, and an independent information space. The strength of this model lies in its mobilising effect, while its vulnerability lies in isolationism and the transformation of politics into ideology without development. Israel is an example of a model in which a strong national identity and security consciousness became the basis of state resilience in an environment of constant threats. The risk of the opposite extreme is clearly visible in the example of Hungary over the past decade, where the emphasis on sovereignty and identity gradually developed into self-isolation from European partners.

The pragmatic economic model places economic rationality above political considerations, focusing on investment, employment, the restoration of production, and modernisation. The strength of the model lies in its rapid material effect, while its vulnerability lies in the reduction of development to growth without meaning, thereby reproducing inequality. South Korea in the second half of the twentieth century is a classic example: rapid economic growth over several decades, achieved, however, at the price of authoritarian rule and significant social inequality during the initial stages.

The social humanist model places the human person at the centre of the measurement of success and seeks to ensure quality of life, education, healthcare, and psychological recovery. The strength of this model lies in the restoration of social trust, while its vulnerability lies in the lack of resources for rapid implementation. The Scandinavian countries, primarily Sweden and Norway, are established examples of such a model: a high level of social trust and social protection, which, however, requires decades of stable and costly institution-building unavailable to a country immediately after a war.

The civic solidarity model grows out of the experience of wartime self-organisation, close horizontal ties, mutual assistance, and societal participation in state decisions. The state provides the framework, while citizens provide the substance. The strength of the model lies in its adaptability, while its vulnerability lies in fragmentation and the exhaustion of the active environment without coordination with institutions. The Polish Solidarity movement of the 1980s remains the most persuasive historical example of how grassroots, horizontal solidarity can eventually develop into the ability to influence state policy and subsequently to shape it. The Ukrainian volunteer movement of 2014 and 2022 is our own, still unfinished version of the same path.

3.2. Why No Model Is Self-Sufficient

The five models are not mutually exclusive. Each, taken separately, solves one problem while leaving a vulnerability where it has no answer. The European model without a national core loses the autonomy of its priorities. The national model without economic pragmatism becomes a system without development. The economic model without a humanist dimension reduces victory to numbers. The humanist model without a civic mechanism remains an intention. Civic solidarity without coordination with institutions burns out.

3.3. Which Model Exists and Which Model Is Needed: A Configuration for Ukraine

The question is not which model to choose, but which configuration has already developed in practice and whether it is the one that should be consolidated.

In reality, an involuntary and unplanned combination currently dominates. The nation-centred model currently prevails in Ukraine because survival is the condition for everything else: without survival, no model has a subject capable of implementing it. Alongside it, and to a considerable extent replacing the weakness of state institutions, civic solidarity operates: the volunteer movement and self-organisation have assumed functions that would be performed by the state in peacetime. European integration exists predominantly as a declared framework and an external horizon rather than as a daily institutional habit. Economic pragmatism is subordinated to the logic of defence. The social humanist model, the weakest of all in practical implementation, remains the loudest in rhetoric: promises of dignified treatment for veterans and families of the fallen are ahead of the actual resources available to fulfil them.

This situation is a natural condition for a country that is simultaneously fighting a war and attempting to build a post-war future. However, unless it is consciously reconsidered, this involuntary configuration risks becoming fixed in the form in which it arose under the pressure of circumstances rather than in the form that corresponds to the country’s long-term interests.

The optimal configuration of the future does not make the five models equal, but distributes them according to the burden each must carry, which changes with the phase of the war. At present, the nation-centred model and civic solidarity remain the principal load-bearing models, with the qualification that the former must remain tied to a specific objective – the victory and survival of the state – rather than becoming a permanent mode of thought. European integration currently performs not a decorative but a restraining function: it prevents the nation-centred model from descending into isolationism or authoritarian logic. Economic pragmatism remains subordinate but not secondary: without a resource base, no other model will endure for more than a few years. The social humanist model cannot wait entirely for the post-war period: the historical experience of post-war societies consistently demonstrates that the disappointment of those who paid the highest price can develop into profound distrust of the state before resources become available for recognition postponed until “better times.” Its minimal core must therefore begin functioning now.

After the end of the active phase of the war, the burdens may be redistributed. The social humanist model should move into a load-bearing position alongside economic pragmatism, which will become the principal engine of reconstruction. The nation-centred model will probably remain the most important, but should ideally be demilitarised and move from a logic of survival to the development of identity. Civic solidarity should undergo institutionalisation: from a network of volunteers into recognised structures with a permanent place in decision-making.

All five models belong to the thick layer: competition among them is legitimate, while the thin layer defines the boundaries that none of them may cross, regardless of how urgent the logic of war may appear. It is this configuration, rather than an abstract principle of balance, that forms the basis of the conditions of the social contract.

3.4. The Risk of a War-Centred Model: When the National Model Hardens

The five models described above are development strategies that someone consciously chooses and adjusts. However, there is a sixth trajectory that is not chosen, but develops by itself under the weight of circumstances, and for this very reason deserves separate attention.

The nation-centred model, necessary and justified at present as a mechanism of survival, has an internal tendency to harden into something qualitatively different: a war-centred model in which the armed forces gradually become the most authoritative social group in the country, with a claim to a political voice separate from the rest of society, justified not by an institutional role but by the sacrifice endured. The logic is simple and at first sight just: those who have paid the highest price deserve a decisive voice in determining what kind of country they paid for. However, taken to its conclusion, this very logic is capable of transforming voluntary respect into a permanent, institutionally entrenched inequality of voice between those who fought and those who did not.

Historical experience demonstrates that this is not a hypothetical path. After the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia entrenched a separate political weight for the military estate that shaped state policy for decades. Weimar Germany failed to manage the return of frontline soldiers, whose sense of betrayal by civilian politics fuelled movements that eventually destroyed democracy itself. Twentieth-century Turkey lived for years under the unwritten rule that the army had the right to intervene in politics as the “guardian” of genuine national interests. Yet there is also an opposite experience: after the Second World War, the United States consciously integrated millions of veterans through large-scale education and housing programmes rather than through a separate political status, and it was this choice, rather than the mere existence of a large number of veterans, that ensured the military did not become a separate caste.

The difference between these two paths lies not in whether veterans’ sacrifice is recognised, but in how it is recognised. Part IV of this document promises veterans structural inclusion: guaranteed places in advisory bodies, genuine employment pathways, and a voice in decisions that concern them. This is legitimate recognition within the thin layer set out in Part II: it expands the circle of those whose voices are heard and corresponds to the equal dignity of every citizen. The dangerous trajectory begins where this recognition ceases to be one voice among others and becomes a voice standing above others, where frontline experience grants not an additional right to be heard but a right not to be challenged. The thin layer is founded on the equal dignity of every citizen regardless of their experience of war. Any model that establishes a hierarchy of political rights based on lived experience rather than citizenship violates this boundary, however deserving its justification may appear.

The historical risk described above is not inevitable for Ukraine, and the reason for this has already been documented elsewhere in this text. Prussia, Weimar Germany, and Turkey shared a characteristic that made the transformation of military authority into a separate caste possible: a weak or passive civil society incapable of questioning any authority sanctified by sacrifice or tradition. Ukraine begins from a fundamentally different position. The civic solidarity model, together with the fact that society is capable of compelling the state to reconsider a personnel decision within days, demonstrates that Ukraine already possesses an active and living civil society that has proved its effectiveness. It is significant even where this effectiveness was directed: the “Cardboard Maidan” of 2026 was aimed not only against a civilian minister, but also against the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces himself and ultimately led to his replacement. A society that sincerely honours military personnel nevertheless proved ready to challenge publicly the decisions of the highest military leadership when it considered them mistaken. This is precisely the habit that was lacking among the Prussian Junkers and in the Turkish military.

The combination of a war-centred tendency with a strong civil society is possible not as a compromise, but as a specific, verifiable mechanism. The State of Israel provides a functioning contemporary example: society is deeply militarised and military reputation has real political weight, while civilian control over the military remains strong precisely because a free press, courts, and active civil society continue to ask difficult questions even of the most authoritative generals, making no exception for a deserved reputation.

The practical conclusion for the implementation mechanism is that the reintegration of veterans should take place not within a parallel and separate structure of military representation, but through the same channels of civic participation that have already demonstrated their effectiveness: advisory bodies, public discussion, participatory budgets, and an independent press. Civil society, rather than the state from above, must remain the environment that receives veterans as equal voices strengthened by experience, rather than as a separate estate standing above the rest of society. The Social Contract Index, which will be discussed below, should include a separate indicator: whether the public and unpunished ability to criticise decisions of the military leadership is preserved as freely as the ability to criticise decisions of the civilian authorities. Should this indicator begin to decline, it will be the first and most precise sign of movement towards the risk described above, long before this movement becomes institutionally irreversible.

PART IV. CONDITIONS OF THE NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT

Before turning to the obligations of the principal participants in society, it is necessary to name the subject matter of the contract itself: the objective around which the state, society, business, and other parties must cooperate. The subject matter of the contract is not an abstract idea of trust, but a specific exchange: each party relinquishes a portion of its actual freedom of action in return for a guarantee that none of the parties can secure alone, namely the same third, normative form of the good, which rests not on private calculation but on mutual recognition.

The state offers real and verifiable accountability rather than symbolic accountability; investigation of the cause rather than the punishment of a random person; and indicators rather than reports of intentions, in exchange for recognition of its right to make decisions on behalf of society, its right to a monopoly in matters of defence and foreign policy, and its right to require compliance with the law. Society offers patience towards the thick disagreements of others and obedience to the law in exchange for a permanent, rather than merely crisis-driven, channel of participation: the right to know, the right to speak, and the right to influence decisions not only at a moment of street mobilisation but every day through transparent procedures. Business offers transparency and the payment of taxes in exchange for predictable rules of the game and protection of property against arbitrary interference, including interference by the state.

A fourth exchange is added to these three. The military and veteran community offers recognition of civilian control over itself, even while possessing deserved moral authority; renunciation of the status of a separate and unaccountable estate; and recognition of the right of society and the press to challenge publicly the decisions of the military leadership as freely as the decisions of the civilian authorities, in exchange for genuine rather than symbolic structural inclusion: a guaranteed voice in decisions concerning veterans, strengthened by lived experience, rather than a voice standing above all other voices. This is the same principle applied to the party that, because of the very nature of its sacrifice, faces the greatest temptation to regard itself as exempt from it: no party is exempted from accountability in exchange for recognition, however deserved the grounds for such an exemption may be.

These exchanges rest upon one common asset that no party can create alone: the transition from a configuration imposed by war to a configuration consciously designed. The subject of cooperation is therefore precisely this transition: the state, society, business, and the military and veteran community jointly build not separate, fragmented reforms, but a single general mechanism, which we shall discuss later, that transforms episodic and unpredictable pressure into a permanent, institutionalised channel of accountability and participation applied equally to all parties without exception.

This constitutes the social contract in the narrow sense: not a list of demands that each party makes of the others, but common agreement on a specific transition in which each party yields something specific in order to receive something specific in return. The contract presupposes reciprocity: no party demands from others what it does not perform itself.

4.1. The State, in Entering into This Contract, Undertakes the Following Obligations

The state enters this contract not as its author or supervisor, but as a party recognising that the right to make decisions on behalf of society exists only for as long as those decisions serve the common good rather than the self-preservation of those in power. Under these conditions, it undertakes to publish an annual report accessible to everyone on the state of implementation of the contract; to ensure genuine accountability of officials, under which a systemic failure is investigated transparently rather than closed by the demonstrative punishment of a random person—this is corrective justice in action, responsibility for specific harm caused rather than the ritual punishment of just anyone; to guarantee transparency of defence and reconstruction expenditure through real-time public oversight; to observe symmetry of risk, under which a decision imposing a burden on part of the citizenry applies equally to those who make the decision and to their families; to distribute reconstruction resources by prioritising the most vulnerable—this is distributive justice, a different type from corrective justice, and it therefore follows a different rule: not an equal share for everyone, but a larger share for the person who has less; to transfer decisions to the community level where this does not affect the thin core; to protect the citizen’s right to express disagreement peacefully and speak uncomfortable truths; and to guarantee freedom of religion without using the religious authority of any denomination for its own political legitimation.

4.2. The Community, in Entering into This Contract, Undertakes the Following Obligations

The community enters the contract recognising that the common good does not arise spontaneously from below any more than it arises through a decree from above; it requires permanent rather than merely crisis-driven practice. It undertakes to develop horizontal ties and participatory budgets as a permanent practice rather than a one-time reaction; to include minority voices in decisions concerning common memory and identity at the local level; to exercise public oversight over the use of resources; and to express disagreement through open and lawful channels, refraining from violence even when a grievance is justified.

4.3. Business, in Entering into This Contract, Undertakes the Following Obligations

Business enters the contract recognising that the long-term stability in which it is interested is a form of the common rather than merely the private good. It undertakes to conduct its activities transparently and pay taxes as a contribution to the infrastructure of trust on which its own future depends; to refrain from corporate raiding and evasion of responsibility under the pretext of martial law; and to participate in the employment of veterans and displaced persons as a strategic investment in the country’s human capital rather than as charity.

4.4. Every Citizen, in Entering into This Contract, Undertakes the Following Obligations

Every citizen enters the contract personally rather than through the mediation of any institution, and for this reason the citizen’s obligation is no less weighty than the obligation of the state. The citizen undertakes to form a conscious civic position and oversee the authorities at the level available to them; to practise responsible public action, expressing disagreement in a manner that changes the system rather than destroying people or trust; and to show patience towards the thick disagreements of other citizens who have different experiences of war, different visions of the past or future, or a different denominational affiliation, provided that they remain within the boundaries of the thin common core.

4.5. Those Who Paid the Highest Price and Society’s Obligations towards Them

Veterans, families of the fallen and missing, and internally displaced persons enter this contract from a position from which the other parties may demand nothing and may only offer recognition. Society and the state undertake towards them to provide guaranteed pathways to employment; systematic psychological support implemented in partnership with civil society and religious organisations where state capacity has not yet had time to strengthen, rather than in parallel with or in competition with them; guaranteed places in advisory bodies on reconstruction, where no decision concerning them is made without their participation; and recognition that the experiences of the frontline, occupation, forced departure, and survival in the rear are different and that none of these experiences should be displaced for the sake of a more convenient common narrative.

In return, those who paid the highest price recognise civilian control over themselves even where they possess deserved moral authority, renounce the status of a separate and unaccountable estate, and recognise the right of society and the press to challenge publicly the decisions of the military leadership as freely as the decisions of the civilian authorities, because the common good that they defended at the front is the same good that requires equality of voice at home.

4.6. Regional Justice

All parties to the contract recognise that the unity of the country cannot be built through the unification of regional experience. Frontline, de-occupied, and rear territories have different needs; reconstruction policy proceeds from recognition of these differences rather than formal equality. This is again a distributive rather than a corrective logic: justice does not mean equally, but according to need. Regions that have endured the most severe wartime experiences must have guaranteed priority in resources and a voice in determining what just reconstruction means for them, because the common good of the country cannot be reduced to a national average when the experiences of its constituent parts are so different.

4.7. Religious Communities, in Entering into This Contract, Undertake the Following Obligations

Religious communities enter the contract not as invited guests, but as parties interested in its development and maintenance no less than the state or the community, because the dignity, justice, and mercy that they proclaim within their own traditions constitute the same thin layer on which the entire contract rests. They undertake to translate these values into language accessible to every citizen regardless of religious belief when discussing the thin common layer; to provide genuine spiritual and psychological support to veterans, families of the fallen, and displaced persons; to maintain distance from political power, without legitimising any particular political force through their spiritual authority; to promote reconciliation among groups with different experiences of war, region, and denomination, without claiming the exclusive right to represent Ukrainian identity on behalf of only one tradition; and to speak openly where the state or society violates the thin common layer rather than remaining silent for the sake of convenient relations with any party.

Together, these obligations of the six parties – the state, communities, business, citizens, the military, and religious communities – constitute the social contract declared in the title of this document: not an agreement concerning what everyone must believe or whom everyone must regard as a hero, since these questions remain within the thick layer of free and permanent conversation, but an agreement on the minimal and reciprocal conditions under which all parties agree to continue living in one country for the sake of a good that none of them could create alone.

PART V. IMPLEMENTATION MECHANISM

The conditions described above remain an intention without institutional instruments, measurable indicators, a time horizon, and a body responsible for revision. The mechanism set out below is a means of determining whether the country is moving towards the common good in its threefold meaning or merely declaring that it is doing so.

5.1. Institutional Instruments

An annual public “Social Contract Index” – a monitoring report prepared by a joint platform with the participation of the state, the academic community, civil society, veteran organisations, and religious communities, giving each party a voice in assessing how the contract is being implemented. A legally guaranteed share of participatory budgeting in every community. A public register of decisions delegated to the local level in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity. A transparent register of criteria for deferments from mobilisation and reservations from mobilisation, making symmetry of risk verifiable. Independent anti-corruption monitoring of defence and reconstruction procurement. A public barometer of civilian control over the military leadership – a regular and independent measurement of whether a genuine and unpunished opportunity remains to criticise decisions of the military command as freely as decisions of the civilian authorities, an instrument directly testing the risk described above. A permanent annual platform following the format “conference–forum–public webinars” that reviews the terms of the contract.

5.2. Indicators of Progress

Trust in institutions is measured through regular sociological research. Accountability is measured by the proportion of cases brought to a final decision. Citizen participation is measured by the proportion of communities using participatory budgets and the share of the budget allocated through these mechanisms. The resilience of civil society is measured by existing independent indices of institutional and financial capacity. Regional justice is measured by the ratio between reconstruction investments and the objective needs of the region. The inclusion of veterans and displaced persons is measured by the proportion of positions they hold in advisory bodies. Civilian control over the military leadership is measured by the proportion of publicly available critical materials concerning command decisions that have not resulted in persecution or pressure against their authors – direct indicator of whether the boundary between deserved respect and an unaccountable caste is being maintained. The autonomy of religious communities is measured by the absence of cases in which spiritual authority is used for direct political legitimation.

5.3. Road Map

During the period of active hostilities, priority should be given to obligations that do not require large-scale institutional restructuring: transparency of expenditure, a register of mobilisation criteria, protection of the right to peaceful resistance and public truth, and the launch of the barometer of civilian control over the military leadership. During the transitional period – from the cessation of hostilities to the first post-war elections – priorities should include a public dialogue on constitutional clarifications, permanent advisory bodies with the participation of veterans and displaced persons, the launch of the annual index, and the gradual demilitarisation of the nation-centred model – a transition from a logic of survival to a logic of identity development without an abrupt rupture with those who ensured that survival. Post-war reconstruction should involve the multi-year implementation of the combined architecture, the institutionalisation of civic solidarity, and the first cycle of annual review of the document.

5.4. The Role of Young People and Educational Institutions

The project assigns a permanent function to the youth and educational component: annual repetition of the cycle “research–forum–public discussion”; integration of the core of values as a subject of critical discussion into educational programmes for young people, educators, and civil servants; and publication of an independent annual youth assessment of the implementation of the contract. Young people cease to be merely the addressees of an invitation and become permanent co-authors and supervisors of the implementation of the common good, rather than merely its future beneficiaries.

5.5. Communication Strategy

The thin layer of values is a direct target of information aggression, which replaces legitimate diversity of views with an image of final and irreversible division. The implementation mechanism includes a database of documented and refuted anti-Ukrainian narratives, research into the structure of Ukrainian identity as the basis of a positive narrative, systematic dialogue with Ukrainians abroad, and educational programmes teaching people to distinguish legitimate disagreement from a constructed hostile narrative. This strategy protects society’s ability to conduct its internal conversation around the common good rather than imposing a single substance upon it.

PART VI. CONCLUSION

We see that the world around us increasingly speaks the language of power, interest, and self-preservation. Ukraine has found itself in a position in which survival itself requires this language every day. Yet it is precisely for this reason, rather than in spite of it, that every time the country chooses conversation instead of force – a court instead of vengeance, elections instead of a coup, street protest instead of rebellion – it does more than save itself. It leaves the world with the evidence it now lacks most: that dignity, justice, and the common good are not luxuries of peacetime, but a language in which a nation is capable of speaking even when the price of every word is measured in human lives.

This may be the greatest thing Ukraine can offer the world apart from victory itself: not an example of how to survive at the price of one’s values, but an example of how to survive without surrendering them.

The common good named in the title of this document is neither a gift from the state nor the property of any party. It is something that arises only when all parties uphold their share of the contract simultaneously, and disappears as soon as one of them decides that its own share is no longer binding.

Victory on the battlefield and victory in the reconstruction of the country are two parts of one victory.