This is the authorised English translation of the speech originally delivered in German by the Ambassador of Ukraine to Germany, Mr. Oleksii Makeiev, in Berlin, approximately 50 metres from the Brandenburg Gate, on 10 April 2025.
Invited by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Ambassador Makeiev became the 19th speaker of the annual event, which aims to enrich the discourse on freedom by offering different democratic perspectives. Previous speakers have included Mark Rutte, Timothy Garton Ash, and Kaja Kallas.
Dear Professor Paqué,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
What is freedom?
Ask in Bonn and you're likely to hear about the first Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer, and the “fateful question” he posed for post-war Germany: the choice between freedom and slavery.
In Leipzig, they will tell you a very different story. One of the Peaceful Revolution in the GDR and how the fall of the Berlin Wall began in Leipzig.
A Frenchman will tell you that freedom is a French invention. Like all the finest things in the world.
A Russian probably won't understand the question. Instead, he will be desperate to “liberate” you. And we’ve all seen what Russian “liberation” looks like — in Bucha and in Mariupol.
But you’ve asked a Ukrainian. And while I'm sincerely grateful for that, the task you've given me, ladies and gentlemen, is a damned hard one – both for me personally and for me as Ukraine's ambassador. Because I owe myself an honest answer, and my brave country and proud people – a worthy one.
So, what is freedom?
The answer depends on who is answering. And when and where they are answering.
Just a few years ago, on a Saturday night, the answer at Berlin’s Berghain could’ve easily matched the answer from one of Kyiv’s nightclubs. Today, in Kyiv, you won’t get an answer at night — there’s a curfew. Instead of techno, you hear the wail of air raid sirens and the buzz of kamikaze drones.
Some of the people you might have seen on Kyiv's dance floors a few years ago are now on the front lines. They used to rave all night. Now they hold the line all night, so that the dancing in Berghain never ends. They stand for freedom. And they stand to the end. For some, unfortunately, the end has already come. The macabre dance of Russia's war of annihilation has become their last dance. They gave their lives for freedom – a freedom they will never experience again.
But what is this freedom, really?
I recall a large banner in the center of Kyiv – an image of a broken chain. Next to it, the words: “Freedom is our religion”. That banner covered the scorched Trade Unions Building on Independence Square – Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The building burned down in late February 2014 during an assault by special forces of then-president Yanukovych. Throughout the winter, it served as the headquarters of the national resistance. The headquarters of a revolution was born in response to the state's violence and lawlessness.
In late November 2013, Ukrainian students took to the streets to protest against the government's refusal to sign the EU Association Agreement. Yanukovych sent in his special forces to disperse them. Under the cover of night, some 300 fully equipped police surrounded a hundred students and beat them mercilessly.
The official reason given was the need to put up a Christmas tree.
About a hundred young people stood on the Maidan for their future. In the days that followed, about a million people of all ages came to Maidan – for dignity. My wife Olena and I were among them.
Most of those one million probably never saw the German Basic Law. But we were all there because of a deep inner conviction – that human dignity is inviolable. That is the very first line of the German Basic Law.
The revolution triumphed. And with it, freedom triumphed. History would come to know these events as the Revolution of Dignity.
Where dignity is allowed to be trampled upon, freedom dies.
Whoever attacks human dignity crosses the boundary of humanity.
Freedom is the defense of dignity.
The slogan “Freedom is our religion” – I can easily imagine it here in Berlin. Somewhere along the East Side Gallery. Another piece of graffiti on the Berlin Wall. A tribute to those who survived this “deadly love”. And to those who did not.
Today, a new wall has appeared in Kyiv, right near my Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine. A wall where foreign delegations lay flowers. A wall that keeps getting longer. A wall with more and more photos of faces.
The fact that, 35 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, we are honoring our fallen next to a new wall in Kyiv means one thing: freedom has still not won. The end of history never came. The fight for freedom continues.
For a freedom that cannot be divided. Because division weakens us, and unity makes us strong. Because freedom is indivisible.
True freedom is a just freedom.
“Unity, justice and freedom” – these are not only needed for the “German fatherland”, as the anthem says.
Unity, justice and freedom – we all need them.
And yet, what is freedom?
Timothy Snyder begins his book “On Freedom” with the story of an elderly Ukrainian woman named Maria from Posad-Pokrovske. Her village was first occupied by the Russians and later liberated by the Ukrainians. But as Snyder writes, Maria's real freedom came not with liberation. Real freedom came with the good deeds of others – those who helped rebuild her home. Those who brought dignity back into the life of 84-year-old Maria.
Not just the absence of evil, Snyder argues, but the presence of good – that is what freedom is.
I bought that book at Kyiv's central train station last week, returning from a work trip. I was in Kyiv with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. As always, the Ukrainian night train arrived perfectly on time. And as always, I thought of Deutsche Bahn.
At first, I wanted to joke that no one in the world enjoys the kind of freedom Deutsche Bahn feels about its schedule. But then I remembered Snyder's book and thought: sometimes freedom is a manifestation of good in the face of evil and despite it. Because, in truth, it's the workers of Ukrzaliznytsia – Ukrainian Railways – who are free. They reaffirm their freedom every day. Departing and arriving on time amid full-scale war.
They succeed because they choose to succeed.
Instead of asking themselves, “Can we?”, they say to themselves, “We have to”.
Freedom is a matter of will.
But I must confess: although I am not only Ukraine’s ambassador but also the self-proclaimed ambassador of Ukrzaliznytsia, I don’t particularly like night trains. I’ve never been good at falling asleep on them.
What I love most is flying. Even more – being at the controls of a plane. And if you were to ask me personally about freedom, I’d probably talk about the sky. About Ukrainian skies, where civilian flights are now banned, and instead of planes, there are Russian missiles and drones. I would speak of my faith that one day I’ll fly again with my good friend Nika. And I’ll once again be his co-pilot. After the no-fly ban, Nika’s plane sat in a hangar in Odesa. That hangar was destroyed by a Russian kamikaze drone, along with the plane.
You may have heard that we Ukrainians built the largest aircraft in the world. Our plane was called Mriya – “Dream”. In February 2022, Mriya became one of Russia’s first targets. Sadly, also one of our first losses.
The Russians have plenty of planes. They’ve even been to space. But I’m convinced – they don’t know how to fly. Or how to dream. Because they don’t have wings. Because they don’t know how to be free.
Responding to Adenauer’s “fateful question,” Russians time and again consciously choose slavery over freedom.
It’s true that Putin falsifies elections – but only because he’s a dictator. He doesn’t need to. To win Russian elections, Putin doesn’t need fraud.
What Russians are really good at is hatred. Their primary motivation is the desire to destroy.
Released Ukrainian prisoners of war recall that the Russians call their torture sessions "rides" – like in an amusement park.
They use old rotary phones with high voltage. They torture by running current through telephone wires. They hang people upside down on pull-up bars. They call it “the bicycle”. They pull plastic garbage bags over prisoners’ heads, filled with bleach. Because a human being, in their logic, should not be allowed to breathe freely.
There is no need to tell Russians, “Don’t look up”. They don't know there's a sky above them anyway. In their minds, there's only their local commander above them – and somewhere way up there, Putin.
Russians don’t dream. That’s why they’re incapable of destroying our dream. That’s why they’re incapable of occupying our sky.
I will fly again with my friend Nika as his co-pilot in the free Ukrainian sky.
It would, of course, be symbolic if one of the first flights in peaceful Ukrainian skies were piloted by the future Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as flight captain. As co-pilot, I could handle communications. As a diplomat, I do that anyway.
Freedom is not just the ability to dream. Freedom is, above all, the will to turn dreams into reality.
But maybe freedom cannot be described in words at all?
For example, I love music. Music really is a force that liberates the personality.
In the fall of 2022, I was appointed ambassador to Germany. The first task was, naturally, to get to Germany. No planes fly, and you already know how I feel about night trains. The choice was obvious. My wife Olena and I got in the car.
The freedom to choose music – that’s one of the few freedoms you have behind the wheel. Being appointed ambassador doesn’t happen every day – it’s only happened to me once so far. So the trip was special. And the playlist had to be special. I compiled it from suggestions sent by my German followers on what was then called Twitter.
There was one song I rediscovered thanks to that playlist.
“Freiheit ist das einzige, was zählt” – “Freedom is the only thing that matters”.
My wife and I sang it along with Marius Müller-Westernhagen on the road to Berlin. Out of love for my wife, I let Westernhagen take the lead vocals.
“The only thing that matters”. What a wonderful line, right? Google informed me that the hit “Freiheit” was performed by Westernhagen at a concert in support of Ukraine in the spring of 2022. It was moving. It was inspiring.
A few months later, I ran into Westernhagen in Düsseldorf. I told him about my admiration and thanked him for “Freiheit”.
A few months later, I saw him again – this time on the political talk show "Maischberger." And what did I hear? Westernhagen was talking about the “long-term causes of the war”. He referred to German politics as a “request concert” and said: “Ukraine’s victory may be the right thing, but we don’t live in an ideal world”. And therefore, he argued, concessions were necessary. Primarily from Ukraine, of course.
And as for “Freiheit” – it turns out the song was never meant to be taken seriously. It was rather satire.
Does this mean that freedom is a satire?
Is the struggle for freedom nothing more than a big April Fool's joke?
Is freedom a joke?
Last weekend, as I worked on this speech, I couldn’t stop thinking of nine names.
Tymofii. Radyslav. Arina. Herman. Danylo. Mykyta. Alina. Kostiantyn. Nikita.
These are the names of nine children. All were killed on Friday evening by a Russian missile. The youngest, Tymofii, was just three years and nine months old. In his short life, he had not known a single day without war. His greatest wish was for his father to come home alive from the front.
On Saturday evening, I came across a quote from a German influencer: “I would rather live in unfreedom than die for freedom.”
End of quote.
Tymofii, of course, had no choice. But what about his father? What if his father had laid down his arms? What if all Ukrainian fathers and mothers had laid down their arms – would their children still be alive? Alive in unfreedom, under Russian occupation – but alive? Tymofii would have to be spelt Timofey in the Russian way. But he would have gone to school. Yes, it would have been a Russian school. But does it really matter?
So, is freedom then an illusion? Surely no one would dare say that freedom is more important than the life of a child.
The next day, I attended the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. At the entrance to the memorial, a man approached me: “I follow you on X. My name is Holger Obbarius, I work here in the education department.”
He offered to give me a tour. When we reached the crematorium, he pointed to a section behind the fence. That was where, on the camp commander’s orders, a small zoo had been set up. A recreational area for the SS officers and their families, where they could spend their lunch breaks. Later, this became mandatory by order of the commander.
Time with the family – just twenty meters away from the crematorium, where the bodies of newly murdered people were brought and stacked. To the Nazis, they were not people. To the Nazis, they were resources. The SS lunch break in the zoo was intended to remind the prisoners of their place in the world's hierarchy. In full accordance with the inscription on the gate: “Jedem das Seine”. “To each his own”.
At that moment, I thought of a school basement in Yahidne, in the Chernihiv region.
In the spring of 2022, Yahidne was occupied by Russian troops for about a month. During that time, all the village residents were confined to the basement.
Men were forced to strip naked – the Russians were checking for tattoos with Ukrainian symbols. There was less than one square meter per person.
The Russians had forbidden burying the dead.
I visited that place with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. One of the former detainees greeted us with the words: “Welcome to the Yahidne concentration camp.”
In his book “The Torture Camp on Paradise Street”, Stanislav Aseyev describes the secret prison Izolyatsia (“Isolation”) in occupied Donetsk. After 2014, Aseyev stayed in Donetsk and continued writing for Radio Liberty under a pseudonym. In 2017, Russian occupiers caught him and imprisoned him in Izolyatsia.
In the book, Aseyev refers to this place as “the Dachau of Donetsk.” “The Torture Camp on Paradise Street” has also been published in German. Of course, in Germany, Aseyev was almost immediately asked whether he might be exaggerating with that comparison.
Izolyatsia isn’t a death factory, Aseyev replied. But it is certainly comparable to the early concentration camps of the 1930s, because of the concentration of prisoners and the total absence of law.
In Izolyatsia, they were also tortured with electricity. Prisoners were forced to sing. Above all, the anthem of the Soviet Union.
A representative of the Jewish community of Düsseldorf once said, “Of course, no one questions the singularity of the Holocaust. But the ongoing Russian genocidal war against Ukraine is equally singular.”
The Russians deny us, Ukrainians, the right to exist. They don’t say that we must all be killed. They simply say that we do not exist.
When we talk about Russian concentration camps in Ukraine, we are not trying to trivialise the crimes of Auschwitz, Buchenwald, or Dachau. And if today we are exaggerating, then isn't it better to exaggerate now, rather than be forced to say the exact same things later, with absolute certainty?
“It started like that back then, too”, said former Federal President Christian Wulff during the memorial event in Weimar, quoting the words of Margot Friedländer, a Holocaust survivor. “If Friedländer says that today, then we must act”, Wulff continued in his speech, immediately launching a direct verbal attack on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
Wulff also mentioned the Russian fascist Alexander Dugin. In 2014, Dugin said: “Ukrainians must be killed, killed, and killed”. There are at least two well-known politicians who eagerly promote Dugin's so-called Eurasianist ideas. One is Vladimir Putin. The other is Björn Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia – the same state where Buchenwald is located.
It started like that back then, too. A warning is not a trivialisation. Freedom must be able to defend itself. More importantly, freedom must want to defend itself.
Everyone at Buchenwald is familiar with the name of Borys Romanchenko, a Ukrainian who was imprisoned there and survived. In March 2022, he was killed in his apartment in Kharkiv by a Russian missile. He did not survive Russia’s war.
“For us – those who work here – support for Ukraine is self-evident. Because it’s all connected”, Holger Obbarius told me.
He struck me with his deep historical knowledge, but just as much with his humanity and empathy. He chooses every word with care. Because he knows that this is the only way one can speak about Buchenwald.
Holger Obbarius never wrote a hit song about freedom. But he probably has one of the most important jobs in the world. He teaches people about freedom. And explains why it must be protected.
In Buchenwald, this truth becomes especially clear. I wonder – has that young German, who said “I’d rather live in unfreedom than die for freedom”, ever been to Buchenwald?
Children in Buchenwald were killed immediately upon discovery. Children don’t work – but they eat. In the Nazi worldview, children were the most useless of all Untermenschen.
In the basement in Yahidne, there were 80 children.
The youngest, an infant, was less than six weeks old.
No – occupation is not better. It does not save children. Unfreedom is the opposite of saving lives.
The price of unfreedom will always be higher than the price of freedom.
Freedom is the foundation on which the entire architecture of Europe stands.
Freedom is the prerequisite for all human values.
In Ukraine, November 21 is commemorated as the Day of Dignity and Freedom. These two concepts complement one another.
Because human dignity is always inviolable. And because human freedom is always worth fighting for.
The concept of freedom is often manipulated. Autocrats and the far right are especially fond of doing so. Enemies of democracy have learned to exploit democratic tools for their own gain with masterful skill.
The newspapers Berliner Zeitung and junge Welt will always present themselves as the most passionate defenders of free speech. But in reality, what they advocate is freedom from facts, and the spread of Russian propaganda.
And of course, the loudest voice crying out about “freedom” will be Russia Today. Under the guise of NachDenkSeiten, it peddles tales of the West’s “double standards” while openly following the amoral compass of Moscow.
I regret that the Free Democratic Party did not enter the 21st Bundestag. That was the democratic choice of the people. But I regret it nonetheless, because today, more than ever, we need every democratic party. Meanwhile, the Alternative Freedom for Germany faction has doubled in size.
And it is the damned duty of every democrat to defend freedom every single day.
Freedom must be ready for war.
Democracy must be capable of defending itself.
Deterring the Russian aggressor begins with defeating his representation in the Bundestag.
Because freedom is no joke.
Freedom is something deeply personal – and something that can only be preserved together.
We live in an imperfect world.
But freedom means dreaming of a better world – and willing it into existence.
Perhaps you can only truly understand the value of freedom when you have experienced genuine unfreedom.
Ukrainian soldier Serhii Hrytsiv defended Mariupol and was taken prisoner by Russian forces. He was freed in a prisoner exchange in the fall of 2024. I quote:
"If they said, 'We'll return all the prisoners if you give us the whole of the Zaporizhzhya region”, I'd honestly say – I'd rather stay in prison. Because the interests of the state, the community, the society, the nation – they are much more important than my personal interests. Otherwise – what was the point of all this, all this imprisonment?"
End of quote.
In October 2022, I was on my way to Berlin. My route took me along the Autobahn of Freedom – the motorway connecting Warsaw and Berlin.
One day, I will take the same road back to Ukraine.
The Autobahn of Freedom must be extended.
Not just to Kyiv. But to Luhansk. And further south, through Donetsk, through Mariupol, all the way to Yalta, in a free Ukrainian Crimea.
Our cities will once again know freedom. Our sky will feel it. Our sea will feel it.
And then, no new photos will ever appear on the Wall of Remembrance in Kyiv.
Europe endures because it has always fought for freedom.
The struggle for freedom continues. And freedom will win.
Because freedom means turning dreams into goals. Because freedom is bigger than all of us. Because freedom is always worth the fight.
Freedom is a challenge. And it cannot be met with weakness. Freedom demands strength.
Our world is not perfect. However, our world's future is in our hands.
Long live Europe. Long live freedom. Glory to Ukraine!
Translation into English supported by: https://arzinger.ua