The world is facing not only a geopolitical crisis, but also a crisis of meaning. Ideas that until recently seemed unquestionable – the leadership of democracies, the durability of alliances, the universality of human rights – can no longer be taken for granted.
Ukraine, a country paying for freedom with blood every single day, is increasingly becoming a driving intellectual and moral force on the global stage.
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Perhaps the world has not yet fully recognized this shift. But Ukraine is already living inside it.
That is why the central theme of Book Arsenal 2026 – “To Bear Your Freedom” – resonates not as a metaphor, but as a formula of lived experience. For Ukrainians, freedom long ago ceased to be an abstraction or a beautiful political slogan. It has become a foundational value: something that carries a price, something that can be lost, and something that must often be defended physically – on the front line, under occupation, in captivity, and in the struggle to remain oneself.
Without freedom, our fight has no meaning. But freedom is not only a right. It is also a responsibility. Responsibility is freedom’s “Siamese twin.” One cannot proclaim freedom and simultaneously avoid responsibility for one’s choices – even when that choice is inaction.
Can freedom be restricted? Sadly, our painful experience proves that it can – not only on the individual level, but collectively as well. Every day we think about prisoners of war, people living under occupation, and those being deprived not only of rights, but of the very feeling of freedom itself.
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