REFORMS WITHOUT FREEDOM:
Why Ukraine Keeps Reforming — Yet Rarely Achieves the Expected Results
Several years ago, in a newly established territorial community familiar to me, officials ceremonially opened a modern Administrative Services Center following yet another administrative-territorial reform.
There was a new building, modern furniture, updated equipment, presentations for international partners, impressive reports about the state’s digital transformation, and promises of a “one-stop shop” for public services.
Yet only a few months later, people once again began searching for “connections,” calling intermediaries, and arranging ways to “solve issues faster.”
Formally, the system had changed. In reality, it had not.
This story goes far beyond corruption or poorly implemented reforms. It reveals Ukraine’s central contradiction: the state constantly attempts to reform mechanisms without changing the philosophy upon which those mechanisms are built.
That is precisely why so many Ukrainian reforms fail to produce the expected results.
Not because there have been too few reforms. And not only because laws are poorly enforced.
But because many reforms still remain rooted in an old socialist logic — the dominance of the state over the individual.
Instead of building a true civil society, reducing state interference in the economy, education, healthcare, social protection, and local self-government, we continue to witness futile attempts by bureaucrats to solve every problem on behalf of the individual.
The cultivation of paternalism — depriving citizens of the ability to take responsibility for their own lives — ultimately paralyzes societal development.
THE MAIN FLAW OF UKRAINIAN REFORMS
After gaining independence, the Ukrainian state formally changed its political symbols, yet largely preserved the Soviet paternalistic mindset.
Its essence is simple: the state knows best; the bureaucrat defines the rules; the citizen is treated as an object of governance rather than a subject capable of independent or collective action.
That is why most reforms in Ukraine follow the same pattern: the state creates new agencies, new regulations, new oversight bodies, new prohibitions, and new procedures.
But it rarely places at the center a free individual and that individual’s natural right to act in their own interests while voluntarily cooperating with others for the common good.
As a result, a paradox emerges.
The more the state attempts to control everything, the more citizens seek ways to bypass the system.
The more bureaucracy there is, the more shadow mechanisms appear.
The more “oversight” increases, the less responsibility people feel.
The socialist model always produces one dangerous illusion: that the primary source of development is the state itself.
History, however, demonstrates the opposite.
Strong nations are not those where officials control everything, but those where citizens are capable of self-organizing around a shared purpose.
THE REPUBLIC AS AN ALTERNATIVE
The word “republic” comes from the Latin res publica — “the common cause” or “public affair.”
In its original meaning, a republic is not merely a form of government. It is a model of society in which free citizens take responsibility for their country as their shared project.
In such a system, the state does not dominate the individual.
Its role is to provide essential public services and establish equal rules and conditions in clearly defined areas such as national security and defense, law enforcement, the judiciary, financial stability, and the protection of citizens’, businesses’, and society’s interests on the international stage.
Everything else is created by citizens themselves: businesses, communities, professional associations, volunteer movements, educational and cultural initiatives, healthcare systems, political teams, and local self-government.
This principle lies at the foundation of the world’s most successful democracies.
People act not because they are forced to, but because they recognize their own interests.
They unite not through fear, but through trust.
They participate not because “orders came from above,” but because they understand both their stake in the outcome and their personal responsibility for it.
And it is precisely here that Ukraine has already demonstrated its true potential.
Ukrainians have proven that they are capable of being a republic.
The full-scale war became the moment when society effectively began functioning according to the principles of a genuine republic of free citizens.
The volunteer movement was not created by the state.
Millions of people helping the army were not organized by ministries.
Businesses were not forced by officials to adapt to the needs of the front.
Citizens themselves did it — voluntarily, effectively, horizontally, and in solidarity.
Ukrainians demonstrated that they are capable of uniting around a common cause without total state control.
Wherever people were given the freedom to act, results emerged rapidly.
This is the strongest evidence that Ukraine’s future does not lie in reproducing a modernized form of socialism under new institutional names, but in building a true republic of responsible and free citizens.
TWO PATHS FOR UKRAINE
Today, the country faces a fundamental choice.
The first path is the continuation of the old logic: more centralization, more regulation, and greater dependence of the citizen on the bureaucrat.
This is the path of endless reforms without changing the essence of the system.
The second path is republican.
It is the construction of a state where the highest value is the freedom of a responsible individual.
Where communities possess real authority.
Where politics is not a struggle for control over resources, but an instrument for organizing a shared public cause.
And where the state serves its citizens.
Only such an approach can create a sustainable model of development for Ukraine for generations to come.
THE TIME TO UNITE RESPONSIBLE CITIZENS
The story of Ukrainian reforms resembles that same Administrative Services Center where the furniture was changed, but the philosophy of the system remained untouched.
As long as the individual remains a petitioner before the state, no reform will produce its full result.
Ukraine does not need another cosmetic modernization of institutions.
Nor does it need a simple rotation of political figures.
It needs a transition from the culture of state paternalism to the culture of a republic of free citizens.
This cannot be achieved through a decree or a single law.
Res Publica begins with the formation of a community of people willing to take responsibility for themselves and for their country, capable of thinking in terms of both private and common good, and acting not as subjects of the state, but as co-creators of the republic.
It is around these principles that new Ukrainian leaders must unite today — people for whom freedom, solidarity, and responsibility form the foundation of their worldview.
P.S.
Dear subscribers and visitors of the website,
If you share the values of republican ideology — freedom, solidarity, and responsibility — and if you believe that Ukraine needs an alternative to post-Soviet socialism in the form of a Republic of Free Citizens, I invite you to join the formation of a community of like-minded people.
Starting today, we begin uniting those who are ready not only to criticize the system, but also to work together to shape a new political culture and the future of Ukraine.
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Over time, the most motivated and values-driven participants will be invited to join a closed community for deeper discussions, the exchange of ideas, and future offline meetings.
A republic begins with citizens who are ready to take responsibility for their state.