On Ukraine’s Independence Day, Kyiv hosted the Sixth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen, initiated by Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska.
This year’s summit was held under the theme “World-2026: Finding Stability in Times of Uncertainty.” It brought together representatives of countries from around the world to share their experiences of resilience and explore how societies can find stability in times of profound uncertainty.
“I remember our first attempts to approach this complex, deeply important topic: three years ago, at our third summit in Kyiv, we studied mental health in 11 countries. Ukraine was already facing an extraordinarily high level of stress caused by the war Russia had unleashed,” Zelenska said.
“At the time, everyone was asking us for ‘the recipe for Ukrainian resilience’ – in truth, we were searching for it ourselves. Now we know: resilience doesn’t mean the absence of pain or fear. It means the ability to act despite them.”
Zelenska stressed that the resilience of a society has not only a mental but also a tangible economic dimension.
“The global economy loses close to a trillion dollars every year to depression and anxiety, and mental health problems cost OECD countries up to 4% of GDP. That’s one more reason why it matters so much to talk about resilience, define it, and share it,” she added.
The summit brought together the first ladies and gentlemen of 14 countries.
Presenting their countries’ concepts of resilience in person were Spouse of the President of the Republic of Estonia Sirje Karis, First Lady of Lithuania Diana Nausėdienė, First Lady of Serbia Tamara Vučić, Spouse of the President of Finland Suzanne Elizabeth Innes-Stubb, Spouse of the President of Slovenia Aleš Musar, and First Lady of Romania Mirabela Grădinaru.
The first ladies and gentlemen from Germany, Belize, Israel, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Guatemala, and Georgia joined online.
This year, the summit was joined not only by first ladies and gentlemen, but also by heads of state who took part in the “Stay Together” segment.
They included President Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Finland Alexander Stubb, President of Estonia Alar Karis, and President of Lithuania Gitanas Nausėda.
The program was built around four thematic blocks – “Discover,” “Make Meaning,” “Survive. Act,” and “Stay Together” – and was divided into international and Ukrainian segments.
The “Make Meaning” segment featured American writer, journalist, and documentary filmmaker Sebastian Junger, author of Tribe, and Ukrainian military chaplain, public figure, writer, lecturer, and philosopher Andriy Zelinskyy.
The “Survive. Act” segment opened with the panel discussion “From the Resilience of People to the Resilience of Systems” – a series of dialogues between government representatives and people whose personal experiences illustrate the theme.
Participants included First Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Energy Denys Shmyhal, and Liudmyla Kozak, an engineer at the Chornobyl NPP’s physical protection department, who started her shift on Feb. 23, 2022, and spent 26 days under occupation.
The panel also featured Yulia Svyrydenko, Prime Minister of Ukraine (2025-26), First Deputy Prime Minister – Minister of Economy of Ukraine (2021-25), and Olena Vlezko, a primary school teacher from the village of Myropillia in the Sumy region who has taught children for more than 40 years, including during shelling and, now, remotely.
The Hatsan family from Kherson, who suffered during a shelling attack, also shared their experience.
The Minister of Health Viktor Liashko participated alongside Yuliia Sydorenko, senior lieutenant of the civil protection service and psychologist at the Main Directorate of the State Emergency Service in Zaporizhzhia region.
Writer and serviceman Illarion Pavliuk took part together with veteran and marine infantryman Hlib Stryzhko, head of a Veteran Hub branch.
As every year, the summit delivered practical results.
One of them is the Global Vocabulary of Resilience – an edition uniting the mosaic of experiences of 38 countries.
It brings together notions, social practices, institutional models, and cultural frameworks that demonstrate concrete mechanisms of resilience.
The initiative reflects the summit’s broader approach: resilience is not a single universal formula, but a combination of practices and meanings shaped by the experiences of different societies.
Olena Zelenska personally presented Ukraine’s philosophy of resilience, developed by Ukrainian scholars – “Sophiynist” – placed within the dimension of “Make Meaning.”
The concept is based on seeing reality as a whole, with both mind and heart at once.
A team of Ukrainian experts defined the term as a philosophy that combines the will to live, the strength to fight, and the wisdom to learn.
A separate part of the program was the Garden of Sophiynist – a space created specifically for the Sixth Summit.
Throughout the day, guests, and participants had the opportunity to get acquainted with Ukrainian practices of resilience, try techniques of applied art, view original installations, and experience the cultural context from which the notion of Sophiynist arises.
The Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen is an annual international event initiated by Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska in 2021.
Since then, it has grown into a global platform that operates continuously and unites the spouses of heads of state who seek to use their influence to overcome today’s challenges, working on humanitarian issues.
Over the previous five years, the summit united more than 55 first ladies and gentlemen from around the world.
In 2022, it managed to raise more than $6 million for 92 ambulances.
In 2023, a medical partnership was launched, within the framework of which more than 100 memoranda of cooperation have now been concluded.
In 2024, participants adopted a joint declaration on the protection of children’s rights during armed conflicts and wars. For its implementation, they developed an expert document that was presented at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly.
For the first time in 2025, the event became a two-day gathering, bringing together representatives from 20 countries and presenting an international study on the role of education in shaping resilience.
The Sixth Summit was co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the Coordination Center for Mental Health of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the Ukrainian mental health program “How Are U?,” initiated by Olena Zelenska, and the World Health Organization.