Welcome to our fourth conversation with Ukrainians Vytas Bučiūnas and Kateryna Yasko marking the four year anniversary of the Russian all out war and invasion of Ukraine. Far from being a sad tale of suffering and resistance, I believe this is one of the most inspiring podcasts we have done. There is great wisdom here how the human spirit and the spirit of a great nation, people can flourish in this time of danger and constant attack. Ukraine is now the spiritual leader of the free world as they fight together for freedom, democracy and the right to exist. You will not want to miss this. Welcome to deep transformation, Self, society, spirit, life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists with Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy. My name is John Dupuy and Roger can't be here, he's on a retreat. But this is a very timely conversation we're going to have today. And so we have with us Vitus and Kateryna Yasko. And these are dear, dear friends of mine from Ukraine and we've been friends throughout this whole special military operation that's going on for four years now. Yeah, this is, this is very powerful and difficult for me because I feel so, so much aligned with you and what you're going through. So I don't think about being a balanced interviewer nor would I want to be. So to start off with what is the kind of the psychological spiritual weather in Ukraine right now after four years of this constant warfare.

First of all, we would like to express our deepest gratitude for this connection and for calling us again and again and also giving us an opportunity to reflect on a yearly basis how is it evolving. And thank you for remembering us, John, and for bringing us and our Ukrainian voices to the integral world.

And I might add that you're a clinical psychologist, a PhD doctor, and you're working with people trauma in Ukraine. And Vitus, you are a banker or some kind of macro economist. So you both bring very interesting perspectives to this conversation. And you're also living in Kiev, if I'm not mistaken, and you have a home in Lithuania. You don't have to be there, but you elected to stay in Ukraine and be with your people. And Vus, you were born in Lithuania.

Exactly.

But one time told me, but my soul is Ukrainian. So maybe we can talk a little bit about that, what that means to you also.

Yeah, I also would like to correct you a little bit. I do not have a PhD and my focus in psychology is more pedagogical psychology than clinical psychology. I work with teams, with schools, with organizations, with Communities. I have a lot of experience supporting people, healing each other through other people. Basically. There are a lot of lessons learned throughout these four years in my profession. And there is a lot of things that we Ukrainian psychologists wish to share with the world.

And I want to also clarify a little bit. I was a banker for 20 years till 2017, and after that I'm a coach and leadership development consultant. So I'm very much focused on leadership development.

And you certainly have. Your country has been.

There's a lot of space for leadership.

Amazing. So, yeah, back to the original. Thank you for correcting all this. I have these ideas. So what's it feel like now in Ukraine? What is the, the psychological, spiritual? We weather after coming up in a few days on the fourth year of the anniversary of this special military operation that was supposed to last three weeks.

So before we speak about psychological weather, I think it would be fair to notice few facts about the physical weather and the conditions, factual conditions we are in at this very moment. Would you like to comment a little bit?

Sorry, John, I know you are saying it slightly ironically, but the term special military operation is Putin's kind of technical term to justify, not to call it war. So I know you are using it ironically, but this is a full scale war. This is pretty genocidal war because Putin is not after territories. He is after the control of the whole country and basically the annihilation of Ukrainian nation identity, and not nation in physical terms, but identity so that no one would, would identify as Ukrainian. And that's, that's a big thing. So why don't you start.

So at the moment it's -12. The last heavy attack that we had took place two days ago. Big part of the energy infrastructure was destroyed again. And big part of the Kyiv buildings are without electricity, heat and water.

Yeah. So just to clarify, minus 12 Celsius is 10 degrees Fahrenheit. And it's not that bad because we had days and nights with basically minus 13 Fahrenheit. And during those days, this winter is really cold. And during those days, Putin was deliberately targeting the heating stations and power plants just to cut off Ukrainians from electricity, from water, from any kind of, you know, heating especially. And there are a lot of residential houses in Kiev that are still not connected to heating. And, you know, those pipes are freezing and then exploding. And there are a lot of these kind of things. And this is a very deliberate strategy. Okay. We.

Using winter as weapon.

Yeah, using winter as a weapon. And, you know, in our historical memory, in the Ukrainian historical memory, There was the famine in 1930s, which, which is called holodomor. So holod is, is famine. Grand famine, grand fame. Yeah. And now cold in Ukrainian is hollowed. So basically only one, the first letter is. Is different. So now we call it holodomor, basically trying to kill people by cold.

So in these circumstances, it's quite interesting to speak about psychological weather. We do not relate it that much to the fourth anniversary or, well, how can we say, of the full scale invasion. It's general mood, which is quite challenging. It's very hard. The resilience of people is astonishing. And most people still decide to stay because this is like an act of resistance. So any decision to continue staying of each person in our circles is an act of resilience. So there is, there are people at the front line who suffer much more because they have less access to heating and electricity and water. So understanding that, we consider that we are in perfect circumstances. So there is a lot of gratitude at the same time because people are very cooperative, supportive. The social fabric is very strong. Our heroes on the energetic frontline are. They are receiving a lot, a lot of gratitudes from people they know for whom they work day and night. So I would say that I would never exchange the possibility of experiencing this meaningful and in a way, happy times, of being part of a big tribe that is resisting a big bloody bear with the hope that we will not only survive, but finally get a chance for prosperity and for independent and democratic and prosperous future for our children, if not for us. Because our generation is basically those who are fighting and losing their health and many of us losing their lives. But we are doing it for the next generation of Ukrainians who are, we hope will have a chance to live in their land and experience their identity and culture and whatever our warriors are fighting for.

Yeah.

And I might might say that that one of Putin's aims is we didn't want to talk about him. But you know, what can, how can avoid. This was to you mentioned, to extinguish the identity of Ukraine as a nation, as a people. And I don't know what it was like before this war started four years ago, but I imagine after four years of cohering and standing and fighting and dying and living together, it must be like a diamond. It must be so incredibly strong. We don't see that in the United States right now. We're all, you know, we're all divided, but it must be incredibly powerful.

Exactly. And Ukrainian nation basically got aware of the price that we need to pay. You know, to stay independent. And that's the path of, you know, growing up. In the essence, you need to really sacrifice so much to stay independent. And now it's an important part of our lives too. And our conscious choice, as you mentioned at the beginning, so, so we can live in any, any other European countries. We could flee and we fled for one year roughly at the beginning of this. And the first interview we had, I think was from Vilnius, from my, my native country, Lithuania. But then we decided to get back just to be part of this fight, which gives a lot of meaning to life and completely different energy in a sense. There's this feeling that we are living more honest life. We are not hiding from problems, we are trying to face them. And of course there's a lot of inconvenience, a lot of even, I would say suffering. But, but part of that is, is absolutely conscious, you know, and so much support to each other, so much consolidation of society. For example, in these cold days, there are so called resilience centers built in cities in Kiev and other cities. So these are like large tents that are heated inside and people from those houses that don't have heating, they come and, and get tea and even, sometimes even sleep there. And there's so much, so much support to each other and so much appreciation of simple small things. So for example, several years ago we could not believe that we would so much appreciate like heating at home, you know, water, and very, very, very like simple natural utilities. And you don't notice them before you lose them, kind of. And that's something we started to appreciate very small things. Even we are, at the moment, we have electricity. Our regime is like two, three hours per day we get electricity and other time we don't because the electric power plants are bombed so badly and they are not able to supply the whole city with electricity. But we invested in some batteries, in accumulators and we can survive for a little bit longer. We bought some tourist kind of style gas furnace, you know, and stuff. So you adapt, you learn to survive. And as long as the meaning is there, it's working well. And of course we know that we don't have any choice, we don't have a choice to surrender. There's no, absolutely no choice, even theoretical. And I think this is a big misunderstanding that a lot of people in the west, even not only in the US but also in Europe, they still have this, how to put it, not misunderstanding, but this strange doubt. Okay, why, why can't you just accept? Basically, no, there's, there's no way to accept the war will not end. And all these recent peace talks or so called peace talks or the imitation of peace talks. So there's one form of imitation going from Russia, another form of imitation going from Trump administration. So even if those beautiful kind of pictures would come to reality, that would not stop the war, not would end. So this war doesn't have an end other than a complete loss by Russia because for Ukraine, there's no scenario where the war would add some line of demarcation.

Yeah, I saw the peace proposal and it was basically a Ukrainian surrender proposal. Yeah, it was extremely. I got really upset and really angry about it.

And even that would not solve the problem. So. Even so.

Yeah, yeah, there's really no. I mean this is your existential survival. And what I like what you said. Vedas earlier talked about the intense feeling of meaning in life. You guys know what you're doing, you know why you're doing it, you know why you're sacrificing. And I think in a lot of Western countries and in the United States, people really know what they're living for. You know, it's kind of. So they do drugs and get into all kinds of things like this. And because they don't have a spiritual, psychological sinner, this is why I'm alive. This is my duty, this is what I'm going to do with my life for my people, for my country, for the world, my family, whatever it is. I get that sense from you guys very strongly and it's deeply moving and inspiring.

I recently stumbled upon a book by James Hillman and Michael Ventura. And the name is we've had a hundred years of psychotherapy and the world's getting worse. And another big concept of this author, James Hillman, is a political self. So the connection between psychotherapy and politics and basically why we're doing so much healing work and spiritual work and psychotherapy, like what for and what is the basis like from which we have to start? And here we think there's. Certain things are very obvious. There is no need for any kind of spiritual work unless you've assured that there is democracy, that there is freedom of speech and freedom of expression. All the rest is bypassing is escapism. I see how in, in super authoritarian regimes people are escaping into spirituality or in some of the regimes that are under big threat, let's not call it regime, but in the political setup that are under big threat of authoritarianism, like in the U.S. unfortunately, people do not know what are the tools, like how to manifest their political self. And because of this helplessness, some of them, they escape into spirituality. And I think that, I personally think, and based on our experience, it's a wrong way. So the best way to practice spirituality is actually human rights assurance and activism and all the rest, like it's coming next, it's secondary. And it's not that we avoid or do not do this or that. Of course it has to be integral. It has to be done simultaneously, ideally what we feel here. And I really don't want to put it in some, you know, in a tone that we know something that others don't know. I believe that anybody in our circumstances will come to the same conclusions and lessons. In our case, it's like karma yoga. Every day. Every day is a heroic act. I've done a training for 20 people few days ago, and we didn't have

utilities, heating, water, electricity.

And I did it. And nobody ran away. And everybody stayed, and everybody stayed focused. And we shared coffee from the pots that were brought by people who had electricity. And we ate well and we enjoyed each other. And we learned. It was a productive learning process because people at the same time are very keen about learning and growing. Of course, when the like very basic hygienical needs, like at least it's. It's not too cold, that's really important. But we managed to solve it. So I really would like to draw attention of your listeners, knowing how keen your community is about growing and transforming. And the aim of this podcast is deep transformation. So I would just like to inspire you to think about this political self. I think this is something in current situation with the world. It's something very basic from which we have to start our spiritual path.

So for deep transformation to truly happen and work, it has to be include politics and freedom and democracy. That's very clear. I couldn't have said it better. I just imagine your group, you know, everybody you're sitting next to is a hero. You know, it just must be an amazing place to do a group. And what do you guys think is I took some notes about this that I wanted to ask. What is keeping you together? Is it humor? Is it ritual, Faith, music, service, community? You already mentioned the deep sense of purpose and meaning. Is there anything that stands out for you that's really cohering your people?

Why don't you start from your theatrical performances?

Yeah, I told a lot during your podcast about theater projects that I've been doing for, for years and now it's blossoming, basically.

Yeah, people are coming to those cold halls, but still they so much need the culture, cultural, deep cultural experience. And in the we space, you know, in the shared.

Yes. So all what you mentioned works very well. What changed and what, for example, I do a lot. We host a lot of people at our place, both for learning programs, like every second week on Mondays we have around 20 people. For example, learning one of the recent books by our dear colleague and friend Valeriy Pekar, who is a Ukrainian integralist and who wrote a book, the Conversations of the Master Haitao, which is about Chinese

stratagem, old Chinese stratagems, basically there.

So we are reading. This is like a group reading. We're reading and processing it. And people sharing stories from their lives, how they used stratagems in order to make better decisions. So this is a highly intellectual work, I would say. And people are getting together, they enjoy each other, they enjoy the fireplace and we also have food and warm drinks. Besides that, even now, at the moment, like the recent months, we've hosted three friends whose in their place. The temperature is very low, they don't have heating and they don't have heating. So we hosted them. And I need to say that even five years ago, if someone would say that we would do it so easily, like without fighting for privacy or really being conscious about how it will be for us having three adult people basically co living with them for such a long time without some concrete agreements on for how long, et cetera, et cetera, that would be for the previous version of us, before the full scale invasion. That would sound a little weird. Now we just take it easy. We have changed because every day is a gift. And if you can help with something simple to someone who is dear to you, it gives you so much joy and inspiration that people are very open to share. And this is something very precious, I would say. I think that we have become better humans. That's if put it shortly, like what happened within these four years, besides huge number of learnings and lessons that we've learned from intellectual, emotional, spiritual, moral perspective, being part of this whole field, I think we, we have become better humans. And what, what could be kind of better for adult people to become a little bit more adult.

It recalls a statement I heard somebody said that Christians are like making tea, the hotter the water, the better the Christian. The heat seems to just make them more Christian in a real sense of the word. Sounds like you're living in a very Christian nation as far as the higher values of Christianity.

We would like to hope so at least.

Yeah, it seems so. And, and the humor you mentioned Humor, the Ukrainian humor, especially the military humor. It's. It's hard to quote right away. I don't know if I'll. I'll come up with anything during this talk, but. But it's very specific and very cynical in a way. But that helps so much, you know, to keep up the moods. And it's endless. Basically, any situation, any new stupidity heard from Trumbo, anyone, and the next reaction in a few seconds, literally there's another meme or another kind of, I don't know, video interpretation or whatever. It helps so much.

Yeah, yeah. And in the United States, some of our top comedians have been almost like our priests to help people process what's going on in the country.

Exactly.

You know, when you put it in that term, they're speaking the absolute truth, but they do it in humorous terms. And it really helps because we are. Our country is also under threat. Not like yours, but from within. And a threat on democracy. And everything that America stood for from the very beginning is daily being attacked. And that is very psychologically very hard. And I have a. A good friend who is a psychotherapist and he says he doesn't have a, a client session without the politics and what's going on in mayor coming as being part of that conversation. So it's very real for us here.

I can bring one very quick illustration. So, for example, the. The next day the Epstein files were released. There was an article in a regional newspaper in a small town which is called Ternopil. It's a relatively small town in, in Ukraine. And the headlight was. No one from Ternopel was exposed in the Epstein files,

which is already a victory,

which is like it all.

They're about the only ones. Oh my God. There was a picture of Obama walking down the road and they said, what is it about this guy? He's not in the Epstein files. You know, so it's like.

Yeah, so. And. Yeah.

Yes. So Ukraine is a real time laboratory for understanding, resilience, agency, meaning making and in a way, moral development under extreme conditions.

Absolutely.

Vetus, you know, your specialty is leadership, and I've always been very interested in the topic. So from the time that you started doing this, I guess at the beginning of the invasion, what have you learned and what has stood out most for you, the people you're working with and what you're trying to promote.

Yeah, that's a big one. I'm thinking how to structure it. So. Yeah, leadership. The form of leadership that we witness here and that we see in both in Business and in military and sometimes in politics and in social life. There are really beautiful examples of leadership. So the, a common denominator, I would say is courage. We basically generally in Ukraine we don't have this opportunity anymore or to luxury to hide in self deception because everything is too obvious. So basically you really need to take responsibility and you really need to do things. And the courage in leadership is amazing. And my interpretation why we are seeing a lot of that is that people cannot stay reactive for too long. And I like this concept of, you know, reactive leadership versus creative leadership. So reactive when you are reacting to some danger, going out of fear and creative leadership. So in better times you have this luxury, you know, to hide a little bit and to stay on your kind of comfort zone and to engage in your habitual leadership styles and tendencies. And in times like these you don't have this luxury anymore. So basically what is happening that a lot of leaders are naturally pushed. So it's a kind of an evolutionary elevator, I would say.

The leadership comes to the fore because of the conditions.

Yeah, you don't have much choice. And you start practicing this more courageous leadership to take responsibility, to act quickly, to you see an opportunity, you go do things and people join in. That's something very, very special. Basically I remember working with some businesses before this full scale invasion, let's say 2018 to I don't know, 21. And the general, general sense was a bit different. So it was more like how to help those leaders see and become aware of their reactivity and then ask themselves okay, what would it take for me to overcome that and up more creative leadership capacity. And now, now it's that the whole field is pushing them and especially we have very, very impressive examples of leaders showing up in military. There are super powerful leaders and these, I would say that this is the grassroots movement, you know, because those, those people were not known before and they're growing from low ranks. But what we see and a lot of business practices are applied in armies. So some of the most successful army corps, they look like very successful corporations and they are applying a lot of orange logic, but a healthy orange and also some, even some green. And for example, recently Ukrainian army has been applying a lot of gaming logic in the military. Basically the military units are reporting basically the points that they're getting for, you know, liquidating, you know, Russian assault groups or machinery or something. And so a lot of innovation, a lot of creative thinking.

So they get the points. And the more points they get, the more equipment they get.

Yeah. So basically What?

So the more effective they are, the more possibilities to be even more effective they get. Wow.

And some young people, those who were video gamers basically, they found themselves so successful in the army because they know what to do. Only the difference is that the targets are real now. Yeah. So a lot of beautiful leadership. And of course, it's not that black and white or not that white, because a lot of people are exhausted and a lot of people need help. They need to kind of. To find ways to recover, to get back on track. And there's a lot of this kind of work, too.

Yeah. I wanted to add that recently our Minister of digital transformation became the Minister of Defense. And how old is he?

He's 30. I would say it's five maybe. Maybe in his late 30s or. Or maybe early 40s, but he's relatively young.

Yeah. The Ukrainian resistance has just changed military science all over the world. It just completely changed everything. You can't even think about spending any money without drawing from the lessons that Ukraine has taught us in blood and courage.

Yes. And everybody is involved. For example, yesterday we were in the gun shop. In the gun shop, we finished the crowdfunding campaign for 2000 Euro. Basically yesterday reached the goal because we produced a number of intellectual products together with our friends. And from each of these intellectual products,

there was a pot that raised some funds.

We raised some funds. And yesterday we. We bought savage rifle. 108 caliber.

Yeah.

Right.

308. Yeah. 308.

Yeah.

Which will be used to train snipers and for their defense. So basically where everyone is, is contributing one way or another.

Yeah. We couldn't imagine in the United States raising money to buy a. A sniper rifle. You know, it's like. It's just so beyond our experience. It's.

It's.

Wow. And this is the key, I believe, because unless you are ready to defend the values you associate with or you consider yours with a rifle, then it's empty. Basically, there is nothing to speak about. And this is a disease, I believe, in the west, because people speak a lot about freedom and dignity and holding space.

Pacifism. Let's stay. We are pacifists. We were never, you know, before this war, we were never interested in these kind of things. But now it's a choice to defend

ourselves, continue to be pacifists in a way, like we are for peace. We only wish that the Ukrainian nation and Ukrainian identity is preserved and there is no other way to preserve it. Unless there are snipers and there are warriors that are equipped so that they could Protect these values and these people and both young and old, men and women. So I think that in today's world, every adult person with democratic, leftist, whatever, spiritual abuse has to be able to use weapon to defend what is really important. So that it would be an embodied experience of self defense or defense of those who are dear to you.

And the protective use of force.

Exactly. This is not violence, this is protective use of force. And this is a new skill that has to be acquired by everyone here. Everybody, I suppose, will soon get trained, which is part of absolutely normal life and requirements for an adult person. In Finland they've done it. In Switzerland they've done it. Every young person gets trained and knows that their moment may come and they will need to defend their country.

Yeah. And differently from some states in the U.S. finnish people have a lot of guns at home, but they don't have

these situations because this society is very mature.

And then by the way, in the first days of this full scale invasion in Ukraine, the government gave away like tens of thousands of AK47s.

Yeah, 74s.

Yeah, yeah. And that you just come up with your passport, however it looks, they write it in the paper notebook and then give you this AKA and you go and find your place in the territorial defense unit. Can you imagine, there were no conflicts at parking lots or whatever for using those guns. So this is also something.

Yeah, the situation is very calm in Ukraine. This is something very important to notice. Like in terms of the general situation from the safety perspective, we feel super safe. I can walk at 11:30pm because 12 midnight we have curfew time till till 5, so we stay home at that time. But at 11:30 I can walk from the metro station. It is about one and a half kilometers and it's not in the center of Kyiv. And I wouldn't even think of any threat around me as a woman. So safety wise in Kiev, I feel very safe. And with children the same. Like we have not so many bad thoughts about letting children go for a walk till 10pm for example. So the society is reacting in a quite interesting way. There are guns, there are veterans in this society. We need to integrate them. There are a lot of them. But the level of crime is very low.

Well, that's the idea behind the second amendment in the United States Constitution, that armed people will guard the freedom of the state. That's why Americans constitutionally have the right to bear arms. And you know, you guys are living it.

And not to make it sound that positive, the war is still going on and it's exhaustive. And you know, Russia, in a sense has already lost, but Ukraine did not win yet. So that's, these are two different things. And we still need to do a lot of fighting. So there's a stalemate in the, on the front line. They are not, almost not moving. And the losses of Russians are unimaginable. They're talking about like up to 50,000 people per month, not only killed, but also wounded. So, so, but you, I couldn't imagine, you know, all the war in Afghanistan in the 80s, basically from late 70s to late 80s, they lost. The Soviet Union lost below 20,000 and now in one month they're losing like twice that much.

And yeah, and our experience in Vietnam over the whole, what was it, eight years or how long there we lost 58,000 killed.

Can you imagine? And now Russian casualties are almost reaching, and that's not a good enough reason for, for Putin to end this war because he, he became a hostage of his own war. Basically. The situation is unfortunately really difficult. We still need a lot of support. And thankfully, things are changing, especially in Europe. They're changing dramatically. And you can imagine who's to. I wanted to say who's to blame, but who's to thank for, for the mindset change in Europe?

Very much so, yeah. One of the things I wanted to do as we begin to wrap this up was to play a song that I wrote at the beginning of the full scale invasion. And I think it's a pretty good song. But equally as good was the video that accompanies it. And that was done by your daughter Anna, and she was 14 at the time. And this, she should have won a, I don't know, a Pulitzer Prize or something for this video piece. I still can't watch and listen to this song without feeling deeply moved. They say it's hard to write a good song. Well, this was so easy to write. It's like it wanted to write itself. I just had to take the notes and play the chords and it was very, very quick process. So that's the way creativity works sometimes. Other times it takes a lot of work. But this was just like, it just came out. So, Vanessa, if you could put this on and then bring us back when it's done. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine Come on and shout it Ukraine. Didn't you get the memo? Didn't you get the news? Putin says he's doing it for Jesus he says you're bound to lose Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine Come on and shout it Ukraine. They killed your men, women and children Buried them in shallow Ditches be reasonable they say you should talk with these sons of your credit Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Come on and shout it Ukraine. They destroyed your towns and cities Your people were raped and killed welcome back to Mother Russia they thought you would be through. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Come on and shout it Ukraine. Why are you fighting like lions with the strength of 10? Why don't you bend your knees and surrender? Act like ordinary men? Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Come on and shout it Ukraine. Democracy really why don't you give it a rest? Dump this so called servant of the people in rain Surely no watch back for Ukraine Ukraine, Ukraine Come on and shout it. Ukraine. Under the colors of blue and gold rose A story that won't get old why didn't you just run away? Why did you choose to fight straight for Ukraine? Ukraine, yeah. Ukraine Come on and shout it. Okay, guys.

Thank you, John.

Beautiful again and again. It's so lovely and heartwarming to watch this. Thank you for this.

Yeah, it's on YouTube, everybody. Free Ukraine. With an exclamation mark. John Dupuy. Boom. The whole video and the whole thing is there. And your daughter. This was brilliant. I mean it just worked together so well and it just happened very fast. So it's kind of an amazing thing. As we're getting to the point to wrap this up. I always feel so honored to talk to you guys and when I talk to you, even think about you, it makes me want to be a better person. Okay. And do more. What can, what can Americans do that feel pretty powerless? How can we help?

So one thing I'm constantly repeating is, and I know it might sound really weird, but I actually invite you to come over and there will be a link to presentation, a speech of one of the those Americans who came over in June. He's a friend, he's an integralist. Last June. Yeah, June 2025. Whose name is Daniel Kirkpatrick and he made a very nice presentation about his stay. He also wrote a lot to his blog and he went through the quite some air raid attacks and he was with us for about a week. And something I would like to convey is if a group of Americans would wish to learn to have this embodied experience, to have this experience of co creation and co living, co experiencing and learning for the future. Because we believe, as I already mentioned, Ukraine is literally a living laboratory of modern crisis, we would be happy to organize that and to connect it with vertical development. And based on all the knowledge we have about Aqual Keegan's perspective, Susanne Ku Gruiter's Perspective. So this is our work and we're trying to look at whatever is happening in Ukraine and experiences that we're getting through this lens. And we believe Ukrainian society has become much more mature. And we also have some proof. We've used some of the scientific tools to measure some of the teenagers, for example, and one of them was our daughter. They were more out of just pure interest. And what we see is some of the 17, 18 years olds, they look at the world from postmodern perspective as an individualist, from let's say Torber's Kugreuter's terminology, which is, please remind me, is a self transforming. How is it called?

Self questioning?

Self questioning, exactly. Self transforming is later. So usually it's the age we see, or we saw before, of people being assessed by those validated tools and some other frameworks. It's about 35 years or so, biological age that we see representatives of the corporate world coming to this stage in life after all the experiences that usually an adult has, has got. And of course age is. Age doesn't guarantee maturity. In our case, we see proof that people are growing up. And we also receive a lot of feedback from foreigners, like with the Emerge Pilgrimage that we organized in 2024, that people, they still report, they write to us. There is a group on WhatsApp where people exchange and they say how much UK has transformed them and how much they became rooted in the core values that they stand for and how they became the ambassadors of not just Ukrainian cause, but general cause of fight for freedom, dignity and democracy. So my invitation would be, if you would wish to connect, we would be super happy to organize a visit for a group of Americans coming to Ukraine. Of course, if you're still not ready and you would like to contribute, we were and we would like to be the bridges to contribute to the causes that you would like to support. And that could be evacuation of the wounded soldiers from the front line. That could be support of the Ukrainian snipers. If you are more prone to supporting military. It could be Kralcher Ukrainian theater and saving those stories that are dying because the museums are hit and attacked. And what we are trying to do is to support the local theatrical groups and directors who take those stories of those people whose museums are not there anymore, like the walls are not there. But their story, the story of their cultural impact, of their resilience, of their contribution to the Ukrainian world culture has to be maintained. And of course, in the circumstances where we are, we need resources for all of them. So please be ready, open. I Don't know. Know that we are very appreciative of any contribution and with total transparency and appreciation for any resource that can come from abroad to. To support the Ukrainian cause.

Thank you. And one little last question that comes to mind. What is something that happened in the last month that you saw that sticks with you? Anything?

There was actually one symbolic date sometime in January here when this war turned, like 14, 18 days. Why this is important because the part of the World War II which was so glorified in Russia and is still very super kind of exploited for propaganda reasons, that was how long. The part of the World War II which was between Russia and Germany, so they call it the Great Patriotic War. This is not all World War II, because as we know, Russia or Soviet Union was. Has started it together with Hitler. But the part that they were kind of glorifying so much took exactly 1,418 days, which is already longer. This war is already longer. And then you can imagine how much the Soviet army moved to the west back then. And now they are fighting for small, small, meaningless villages and putting tens of thousands people there and are completely stuck. So this is about their complete moral, economic, technical, technological, scientific, whatever, bankruptcy. And we are still on the right side of history, and that brings a lot of energy to us.

Well, thank you. And sometimes in the United States, we're so caught up in our own drama and the resistance movement that's coming out in Minneapolis and other parts through this rather fascist takeover, our country that we forget about Ukraine and guys are still there and just every day resisting, resisting, resisting. And all you have to do would be to collapse once and the Russians would be in Kiev. If they had any vehicles that still

work, you know, they will be not only in Kyiv, but in Warsaw, in Vilnius, Riga, Thailand and many other places. So this is not only about Ukraine and thank you. Thank you, John, for creating this space for us to share.

Well, thank you. It's a deep honor and appreciate you guys a lot. Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved, as we are moved, being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to mainly to get this podcast out to more people because the bigger audience have, which is steadily growing, but the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done that a couple of ways, but we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple. And I do that with podcasts that I support, and I find it very satisfying. So thank you for your help, thank you for your presence, and thank you for all you are and all you do. We love you.