To act preventively means to prevent catastrophic harm from further actions of Russia - the appeal of the President of Ukraine to students and teachers of Harvard University

Dear students and teachers! Great Community Harvard! I am grateful for the opportunity to contact you. I have a little more than a few words, because I was asked to focus on two topics: peace and leadership. And this seems to me a good offer. So I would like to say about it first, and then, I am sure, we will find enough time to communicate, and I will gladly answer all your questions. What we all strive is peace. And what allows our aspirations to fulfill is leadership.

I'll start with a few examples. Literally today, another blackmail statement about nuclear weapons was made in Moscow. Russia's leadership is very trying to create in all of us that they allegedly have a willingness to use nuclear weapons. There are also statements all day that they are ready for annexation of part of the Ukrainian territory. It is said that there are no obstacles to annexation. The statement about the grain export corridor was also made.

Such a statement that obviously prepares the conditions for Russia to break the export of agricultural products of Ukraine again and again put dozens of African and Asian countries in danger of famine. What accompanies all this? I'm asking. Russia either frankly says, or means that the world is simply "swallowed" all this: nuclear blackmail, and criminal annexation, and another mass hunger that the Kremlin is able to do.

Do you think this situation is tolerant? When someone is threatening everyone. When one one thinks that he has the right to kill and starve. When one is so much smudged that he is not enough to steal money or resources in his territory, and he wants to steal from the territory of others. I think it is not normal for all of you. Even at the level of rhetoric, these are crimes. Nuclear blackmail, annexation, hunger and anything similar, even at the level of applications, deserve harsh action.

I think so. Actions to prevent any catastrophic scenario. But what do we see actions in connection with statements that sound from Russia? This is a fundamental question of leadership. Here you, at the walls of Harvard University, must probably have a special sense of leadership. Harvard is one of the most powerful sources of leadership. Hundreds of different leaders of politics, jurisprudence, science, business, and other spheres of human activity were educated here and key skills.

And in those who were truly successful, you can notice one thing in common. It is the ability to act first. To act on ahead. To act when most still do not understand that it is already necessary. Or vice versa - when everyone is already understanding, but they are so afraid of terrible consequences that they simply fade when they need to neutralize their cause until it exploded. It is a preventiveness. Preventivity is a key aspect of leadership. And it is in politics that he works the most obvious.

We all know that we need to use safety belts in the car. They save from the consequences that can be if there is an accident. We do not wait for an accident to personally make sure that safety belts are needed. We trust the experience of those accidents that have already happened. Many of us - if not all - use insurance services. They can be different, but all are about the same: in the event of negative consequences, a person receives compensation under the terms of the contract.

The insurance contract begins to act before something happens and is a guarantee - a guarantee of protection. For all, we are the norm when the killer is isolated after the conviction. We know that it is not only a paying for a crime, but also a way to protect society from a new murder that can happen if the killer remains at large. No one wants to wait for the second murder to make sure the killer is exactly the killer. He is condemned for his first murder. And that's right.

And this can be a lifelong detention - in the event of a special danger of the act committed by the person. All these are realities. All this is the principle of preventiveness. He is near us in ordinary life to give us the safety of this life. This is how preventiveness should work in both political issues and international relations. Should work. This is what we said last year when the world watched Russia as Ukraine brought its army to the border of Ukraine for a full -scale blow.

We said: Let's act preventively, right now, without waiting for the blow. We said: let's act on preparing the blow as if it happened. To make the aggressor feel the painful consequences in advance - even before it makes irreparable and starts a cruel war. But . . . but . . . but . . . you know how events developed. When there are no preventive actions, there is only one thing to react. And this is always a less strong position.

Because when you act preventively, you are automatically - the leader of the situation, you determine its development. And when you are forced to respond, you still have to fight for leadership. You must first take the initiative and then you can work for success. Your success. And now we are in the same important moment that was on the eve of a full -scale invasion. This is the moment for preventive actions. Russia talked about nuclear weapons.

Russian propagandists speak even louder than before that the strikes and annexations are waiting not only to our country, but also to others - from Kazakhstan to the Baltic countries, from Georgia to Moldova and Poland. The Russian president says again - and very frankly, by the way, that he wants to break the grain export initiative, which depends on the food security of tens of millions of people. Take a look at the situation with the atomic objects of Ukraine.

For the first time in history, the nuclear power plant was fired from tanks with direct guidance. For the first time in the history of winged rockets, a blow to the territory of the nuclear power plant was struck. Why Russia does it all? She sees a lack of preventability in the world. The devastating consequences should come for Russia. Already for the very fact of such threats, already for the very fact of such rhetoric.

Only preventive actions can show that the world is not "swallowed" and that the aggressor will have to pay for all this painful price. To do this now, to act preventively means to prevent catastrophic harm. To respond when Russian blows are already happening - it is harm and find yourself at a new level of escalation. These days, Russia hopes to announce a new annexation of the occupied territories of Ukraine. It has long been preparing, it has long been clear.

We see these pseudo -referendums in the territories that Russia wants to swallow. And we know that mobilization in Russia is declared by accident on the eve of this new criminal annexation. The purpose is obvious - the occupier wants to take the residents of the occupied territory into the army. Either you will be killed or you kill you - Russia wants to force hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in occupied lands.

And there is no preventive sanction blow that would show Russia that it will not be able to "swallow" a single part of Ukraine. When such a shortage of preventiveness occurs, when leadership is manifested only then - in response, in adaptation to the negative consequences of certain actions of Russia, it leads to loss of time, loss of opportunities. To the fact that the path to peace becomes longer. Leadership and peace are two directly related things. The fact is that we became leaders in the war.

We were all forced to become leaders in the war - in counteracting evil that started this war. We have reached an unprecedented unification of the free world. And, by the way, I want to thank the United States of America and Biden President, all our American friends for their contribution to this association. This is an invaluable contribution. Secondly, millions of Ukrainians show unprecedented personal leadership daily. Consider only one figure - 30 thousand.

Almost so many Ukrainian soldiers have already been awarded state awards for courage for these six months. But it is not just about our warriors. For Ukraine it is a people's war. Millions of people have been in defense of freedom, in defense of independence. These are children who support the military: they collect money for defense, write letters to the front and even just wear water to boys on checkpoints. These are thousands of volunteers. These are our heroic doctors and nurses.

They do operation under fire, take birth in bomb shelters, help those who were crippled by Russian blows. I can give many examples where the personal leadership of a person now - from the presidents of the states who support us, to ordinary people who expel the occupiers from Ukraine - are part of our general leadership in the war and the parts of our future victory. But we need to learn to be leaders in peace! We need to draw the main conclusion now. Preventivity is a basic thing.

This is what can do the most to maintain peace. This is something that can stop aggression faster. This is something that can save more lives than any response to trouble that has already happened. And this is something that can maintain peace for a long time, when the principle of preventiveness is the basis of the post -war architecture of security guarantees. This is our, Ukrainian view of leadership, safety, peace. This is what can and should work. This is what we call for.

What we put the basis of specific decisions. Leadership without preventiveness is not complete. Without the ability to act on ahead. Without the ability to beat when you see that you are preparing to hit you. Even the best postfactum team game does not give the opportunities you have when you know how to take advantage of preventive action. When you can act first. The free world is definitely stronger than any aggressors and terrorists.