No more months. No more weeks. Stop the war now—then show up in Ukraine in person.

From the Office of the Lucid Founder, Unified State
Kyiv, Ukraine — 1 September 2025 • 23:06 EEST (UTC+3)

I am Michael Tulsky (Lucid Founder), and I say this plainly: your fundamental misunderstanding of Ukrainian society—paired with slow, arms-only support and diplomatic hesitation—is driving a spiral that will not stop at Ukraine’s borders. If you do not correct course, you risk a continental unravelling.

From 2014, when Europe witnessed and mediated the Agreement on the Settlement of the Crisis in Ukraine and then let implementation slip through its fingers, you have been stepping behind events instead of in front of them. The cost of that hesitation is visible in every family without light, heat, or safety.

You thought money and weapons alone could substitute for presence. They can’t. The EU Advisory Mission (EUAM) has existed since 2014—but its mandate and scale were never matched to wartime state-building. You armed the body; you starved the institutions that must carry it through winter.

Yes, Europe created a €50 billion Ukraine Facility with quarterly disbursements. Good—and still too slow against a clock measured in blackouts and funerals. Front-load it, lock the calendar, and staff the delivery with boots-on-the-ground experts beside Ukrainians.

Since spring 2025, Russia has hammered Ukraine’s energy system thousands of times; last week alone, strikes across six regions cut power to over 100,000 people. You cannot tell civilians to “endure” another winter while aid trickles. Move.

Meanwhile, 4.31 million Ukrainians live under temporary protection across the EU, and millions more are displaced inside Ukraine. Honor them with predictability: extend protection, fund host communities, and prepare return pathways—because Ukrainians intend to come home.

Early in 2022, when Ukraine begged for a no-fly zone, NATO refused to avoid a wider war. That choice made speed, predictability, and presence the non-negotiables. Deliver on them now.

What I ask Europe to do now (D-Day = today)

1) Declare and launch an EU Civilian Presence Surge (D+0 → D+90).
Scale up EUAM and Civil Protection deployments into a countrywide winter cell: grid engineers, hospital logisticians, prosecutors, auditors, social workers. Pair every critical Ukrainian institution with embedded EU teams from oblast to village. (You already have the legal scaffolding—use it.)

2) Build an “Energy Shield” before frost.
Pre-position transformers/turbines via rescEU hubs; pair with point air defense for substations and gas infrastructure. Germany’s new Patriot commitments and IRIS-T pipeline must be scheduled to sites, not headlines; publish delivery and crew-training dates.

3) Make aid arrive like clockwork.
Hard-wire quarterly Ukraine Facility tranches (no political suspense), tie releases to clear institutional milestones, and top up with profits from immobilized Russian assets for air defense + grid repair.

4) Announce a time-bound ceasefire test with verification that protects civilians.
Set stand-off distances for heavy weapons, monitored humanitarian corridors, and synchronized POW/hostage exchanges. Design the track to survive domestic politics; pair it with escalation clauses if Russia violates. (Europe is now a central defense producer—use that leverage.)

5) Stand with society, not just elites.
Surge winterization aid, cash assistance, and psychosocial support to IDP-hosting communities and energy-poor districts—administered with EU auditors on site, not by email.

6) Keep Europe open—and ready for the return.
Lock temporary protection through 2027, harmonize benefits, and fund return bridges: skills recognition, housing credits, relocation assistance—so Ukrainians can rebuild at home when guns go silent.

7) End the delivery lag.
Move critical items (interceptors, counter-drone, repair parts) into an EU rapid lot with penalty clauses for slippage; publish a public dashboard of deliveries vs. promises. (The data show Europe now leads on industry-procured military aid—match that with speed.)

From me, personally, to you

I have spent my life inside Ukraine’s reality—fighting for cooperation over annihilation. Ukrainians begged not for slogans, but for you to be here—physically, professionally, humanly. When the full-scale war began, ordinary people self-organized and held the line while leaders froze. They earned not just aid; they earned companionship in the work.

So I say this as plainly as possible:

Stop the shooting—now. Test a ceasefire with verification and civilian protection at its core.
Arrive—now. Engineers, prosecutors, energy crews, social services, auditors—in person.
Shield the grid—now. Move Patriots, IRIS-T, interceptors, and spares to named nodes on a fixed calendar.

Help on time—now. No cliffhangers. Quarterly. Audited, traceable, tamper-proof. Delivered.

Ring-fence every euro to outcomes, not networks. Disbursements under the Ukraine Facility must clear ex-ante checks by the newly appointed EU Audit Board, with standing rights for OLAF (anti-fraud), the European Court of Auditors, and, where relevant in participating states, the EPPO to investigate crimes affecting the EU budget. Publish a short per-tranche compliance note before money moves.
Make contracts sunlight-proof. Require all procurement funded or co-funded by Europe to run through Prozorro (open-source, “everyone sees everything”) and be mirrored to DOZORRO for civic monitoring, with data in Open Contracting Data Standard format. Add a public “Delivery & Integrity” dashboard (items, prices, winning bidders, milestones, delays, complaints, remedies).
Track reconstruction in one open window. Mandate use of DREAM—Ukraine’s official Digital Restoration ecosystem—for every reconstruction project and link it to site-level photo proof, geo-tags, permits, and payments. (One map. One ledger. Zero excuses.)
Name the people behind the companies. Contracts over an agreed threshold must disclose verified beneficial owners at award and payment—and auto-suspend on mismatch. Ukraine’s BO rules and the OECD integrity scorecard make this feasible now; Europe should insist on verification + enforcement, not just registration.
Wire in red-flag analytics. Use Prozorro risk signals and DOZORRO’s ML detectors to auto-flag price anomalies, single-bid tenders, related-party chains, and sudden change orders. Force a pause-and-review before funds are released when red flags trip.
Set hard “integrity triggers.” If audits or monitors find irregularities, fraud, conflicts of interest or corruption not corrected by Ukraine, the Commission reduces or suspends the tranche—automatically—until remedied. (This is already foreseen in EU control doctrine; make it explicit for the Facility.)
Co-embed the watchdogs. Pair EU auditors with Ukraine’s State Audit Service/Audit Council and the Accounting Chamber to run joint, real-time checks in energy, logistics, healthcare, and housing. Publish quarterly field audit briefs.
Back the “teeth”: NABU, SAPO, HACC. Earmark funds and technical support to keep Ukraine’s top anti-corruption trio independent and fast—and protect them when politics bite. Their 2024–25 results show capacity; Europe should lock their budgets and case pipelines into the winter plan.
Respect, then require, public pressure. When Kyiv moved on agency independence, Ukrainian society forced a fix—and the law was signed to restore it. Build that civic power into the financing design: no secrecy clauses, routine public consultations, and a standing whistleblower line.

Restore Democracy on a Clock (E-Day Plan)

Ukraine needs elections back—not someday, but on a clock that starts now. Ukraine’s Constitution and martial-law regime block national elections during martial law; fine—then Europe must help us prepare everything now so the people choose a new mandate the minute the ceasefire verification allows martial law to be lifted.

D+0 → D+30 | Publish the Elections Reset Roadmap.

Press for a public roadmap co-signed by Kyiv and the EU that sets legal, technical, and security pre-conditions and a target election window of 120–180 days after martial law is lifted (or after a verified ceasefire that allows lifting). The European Parliament already notes elections are legally banned and impractical under martial law—so do the prep now, vote right after.
Lawful switches, pre-wired.
Draft and table, within 30 days, a narrow package of Electoral Code fixes that are dormant until martial law ends:
- enfranchisement of IDPs, military, and out-of-country voters (procedures, registers, secure early/field/mobile voting),
- equal media access and anti-abuse of administrative resources,
- transparent campaign finance and beneficial-owner disclosure for media/contractors.
  (These steps track ODIHR/EPDE/IFES advice and ongoing EU accession benchmarks.)
Observers invited now.
Invite OSCE/ODIHR today to start a pre-election assessment mission and book full observation for the first lawful national vote. Observation readiness is not wartime campaigning; it’s rule-of-law insurance.
CEC capacity + open logistics.
Fund and staff the Central Election Commission to war-proof voter lists (IDP updates, diaspora channels) and publish a readiness dashboard (polling-station coverage, secure transport, ballots, IT, complaints). Use open data standards for full public scrutiny.
Media pluralism safeguards.
Pair the roadmap with temporary, content-neutral media guarantees for the campaign period (equal time, access rules, adversarial debates) and an independent complaints channel—so voters get information, not fog. (ODIHR/EP practice.)
Civic mandate, not elite choreography.
Note that hundreds of Ukrainian CSOs, led by OPORA, insist elections must follow sustainable peace + proper preparation—Europe should fund that preparation, not push illegal timelines. I support that sequencing.
Caretaker limits until the vote.
From the moment the Roadmap is published, adopt a caretaker code: freeze non-urgent senior appointments, sunset extraordinary decree powers at E-Day-X, and parliamentary oversight on any major fiscal/asset decisions. (Venice Commission/ODIHR principles.)
Integrity triggers tied to Europe’s money.
Make Ukraine Facility disbursements after D+30 contingent on: (1) Roadmap published, (2) observer invitation sent, (3) dormant Electoral Code fixes passed, (4) CEC dashboard live. Miss a trigger → tranche pauses until fixed.
Earliest lawful date, publicly named.
As soon as the ceasefire test lets us lift martial law, the CEC announces E-Day within the pre-agreed 120–180-day window, with OSCE/ODIHR on the ground. No drift. No excuses.

Unified State position

Unified State urges the need for people to speak—legally, safely, and soon. This government has proven it can only spiral a war; the next mandate must come from ballots, not inertia.

Europe: do not ask Ukrainians to absorb another winter while policy inches forward. Act with Ukrainians, beside Ukrainians, inside Ukrainian communities. Make war impossible to sustain for anyone.

Act now.

Yours faithfully,

Lucid Founder – Michael Tulsky

on behalf of the Unified State

Kyiv | 1 September 2025

Unified State: Urgent Appeal to Europe