KYIV—Travel to Dnipro or Kharkiv, cities close to Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory, and the first impression might be one of improbable normalcy. Families stroll through manicured parks. Restaurants and hotels are packed with foreigners and locals. Commerce spills onto buzzing streets.
Look closer, however, and the architecture of war is everywhere. Children study in a growing number of underground schools. Hotels sit atop makeshift bomb shelters for guests. Giant nets increasingly loom over arterial roads to foil Russian drones.
More than four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukrainians are, understandably, tired. Russia’s strategy of targeting civilian infrastructure is intended to make civilian life as miserable as possible. This past winter was among the harshest in memory, and many of those living in Ukraine suffered through it without power or heat. This summer, Russia’s drones and missiles have continued to strike water supplies and sanitation infrastructure that sustain civilian life.
As the front lines have hardened, air strikes are increasingly pounding Ukrainian cities, with Russian attacks on civilian and humanitarian areas taking a heavy toll. “It is like running a marathon, but a marathon that never ends,” the chair of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council told our delegation during a visit to inspect the work of the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in June. Just days before our visit,* a Russian missile had blown up the agency’s supply warehouse in Dnipro.
“But,” she continued, “we can’t give up any land. This is our territory.”
Ukrainians say they are fighting on Europe’s front line, for Europe. But their struggle is not only against Russian forces. They are also fighting to build a future within the European Union (EU). The first fight requires arms; the second requires the rule of law and resilient institutions. Both struggles require sustained support from Europe and the United States, as well as Ukraine building on its reforms so far.
Ukraine’s wartime democratic resilience
In both of its fights, Ukraine is strengthened by its strong democratic spirit, despite the implementation of martial law and suspension of elections during wartime. Just look at the past year.
In July 2025, as investigators from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) closed in on members of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s inner circle, parliament rushed through a law that protesters and critics said would curb the independence of both anti-corruption agencies.
The public responded defiantly. Within hours, thousands filled the streets to demand accountability, despite Russian strikes that same day. The EU moved almost as fast: Senior officials warned Zelenskyy that independent anti-corruption bodies were essential to Ukraine’s EU path and support. Rather than banning the protests or retaliating against activists, Zelenskyy reversed course.
The Ukrainian public again demonstrated its political power this year. On July 15, Zelenskyy announced a surprise cabinet reshuffle that included the dismissal of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, who was widely credited with Ukraine’s pivot to high-tech warfare. The decision sparked national uproar. Many Ukrainians saw the move as Zelenskyy siding with Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s then-top general, who was viewed as representing an older, more conventional military mindset. Even as intensified Russian strikes made June the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, protests swept cities across the country.
Once again, public outcry helped sway the nation’s leadership. On July 21, Zelenskyy replaced Syrskyi with a military leader who had publicly sided with Fedorov.
These episodes expose genuine problems, from corruption to discord within the military establishment. But they also reveal a vibrant civil society unafraid to voice discontent and political leaders who remain responsive to public pressure. The Ukrainian people have twice risen against corrupt, authoritarian rule over the past quarter century. They are now valiantly defying an autocratic, revisionist Russia while continuing to demand accountability at home—a powerful testament to Ukraine’s wartime democratic resilience.
EU accession as an answer
Ukraine’s bumps along the road to reform should be understood as signs of progress, not instability. The public’s commitment to government accountability and European integration has repeatedly helped correct the government’s course.
But public pressure can only correct course after the fact. The rule of law is built and tested through the daily grind of institutional functions, and this is where Ukraine must become more proactive. In his essay on Ukraine in the 2024 Freedom and Prosperity Atlas, economist Yuriy Gorodnichenko describes a widespread perception that the Ukrainian judicial system does not function as an effective check on executive power and corruption. Addressing that weakness is essential if Ukraine is to become a success story.
The EU has already provided Ukraine with a blueprint. In December 2025, the EU and Ukraine issued a joint statement setting out ten reform priorities drawn from Ukraine’s accession criteria, with a focus on the rule of law and anti-corruption measures. This plan was initially conceived as a workaround to Hungary blocking Ukraine’s formal accession negotiations—which has since been partially lifted—but it is also evidence of what the EU considers to be the critical reform areas for Ukraine.
Because the plan sits outside the formal accession process, there is no public EU mechanism tracking its implementation. A coalition of eight Ukrainian organizations therefore built its own. Applying the EU’s standards, the coalition gave the Ukrainian government a score of just 15 out of 100 this June.
Yet when the EU attached money to specific reforms, the government moved quickly: In March, European Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos sent a letter to the Ukrainian parliament pressing for passage of eleven reforms tied to as much as four billion euros in conditional EU disbursements. At its next session, the legislature passed several of the measures, unlocking €875 million.
Reforms are rarely easy, and often they are exceedingly difficult. But Ukraine’s long-term freedom and prosperity can only be guaranteed with EU accession, and accession can only come about by making more progress on the reforms necessary to join the bloc.
What Latvia’s accession shows
The short-term difficulty of making reforms must be weighed against the longer-term benefits to Ukrainians. To get a sense of these benefits, look no further than the experience of another post-communist country that instituted reforms and joined the EU.
Latvia applied to join the EU in 1995 and became a member in 2004. As the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes show, Latvia improved its bureaucracy and corruption score by twelve points during those EU accession years. Ukraine’s score rose by just three points during the same period.
Notably, however, Ukraine did improve significantly after the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, reflecting the connection between its westward shift and strengthening of the rule of law. Still, on judicial independence and effectiveness, Latvia’s score has remained more than twice as high as Ukraine’s for the past fifteen years.
As Gorodnichenko emphasized in his essay, Ukraine will need a major convergence with EU legal and economic standards before it can join the bloc. But as Latvia and other post-communist countries show, radical improvements in market access, infrastructure, and investment translate into real prosperity. In 1995, Ukraine and Latvia had virtually identical income scores in the indexes. Today, Latvia’s score is almost 25 percent higher.
The US can help Ukraine on its European path
Civil society played a critical role in Latvia’s EU accession, and it was not just the EU that supported it; the United States helped as well. Ukraine now stands at a similar historical juncture, but US funding for the independent institutions that support civil society has been cut in half. US disbursements supporting Ukraine’s anti-corruption bodies, civil society groups, and independent media fell from $109 million in 2024 to $54 million in 2025.
Ukrainian newsrooms were the most exposed: 35 percent drew more than three-quarters of their budgets from US grants. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Ukrainian service, Radio Svoboda, which provided an important, reliable voice in a media environment too often saturated by Russian disinformation, was cut. In a January 2025 survey by Ukraine’s Institute of Mass Information, 8 percent of independent media outlets said they were operating in survival mode. By a May 2025 follow-up, the share climbed to 29 percent.
Note: James Mazzarella’s visit to Ukraine was supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC). This analysis represents the authors’ views.