Boevye Medoedy Livestream: Discussion of the "Institutsiya" (New Constitution Draft)

Introduction and Context

The evening livestream "Boevye Medoedy" opened with an announcement that a scheduled guest, Artyhryn, was delayed due to military duties and would instead appear the next day at 1 PM for an extended session. In his absence, the hosts—described jokingly as "folk philosophers" and "non-philosophers"—gathered to present and discuss a book called "Institutsiya" (Institution), a draft document proposing a new constitutional framework for Ukraine.

Origins and Timeline of the Project

The conceptual work behind the project traces back to around 2015, when the group began discussing the "Charter of the Future" and what a different kind of society could look like.
The idea of formalizing this vision into an actual legal document—written in the language of law, with the conviction that it could realistically be implemented—began around 2018–2019.
Since roughly 2010, Ukrainian society has periodically raised the idea of a new constitution (not just constitutional reform), but this idea remained confined to a small, marginal group of experts and rarely gained real political traction.

Critique of Ukraine's Existing 1996 Constitution

Most attempts at "constitutional reform" in Ukraine have historically amounted to superficial edits—cutting and pasting powers between institutions—rather than genuine reform, often carried out through unconstitutional means.
Examples cited include the 2010 Constitutional Court ruling that altered the form of government, followed by reversals in 2010 and again in 2014, showing a repeating pattern of politically motivated, ad hoc constitutional tampering.
There is a persistent myth in Ukrainian society that the 1996 Constitution is "ideal" and simply needs to be followed. In reality, it is not treated as a genuine social contract and is not consistently observed by political actors.
A key structural problem: if a constitution itself contains provisions that allow it not to be followed, something is fundamentally wrong with the text.
During work with the 2012 Constitutional Assembly (an advisory body under the president, chaired by Kravchuk, with Stavniychuk as secretary), analysis showed that around 70% of the Constitution's norms were not norms of direct action—meaning they were not actually enforceable or implemented despite being part of the "basic law."
Some of the original authors of the Constitution admitted that certain sections—particularly on popular sovereignty (elections and referenda)—were deliberately written in a way that made them impossible to use in practice. This was described as an intentional design flaw by the "founding fathers" of the Constitution.
The current Constitution is characterized as fundamentally post-colonial or even partly colonial in nature, embedding contradictions in governance and power structures that still undermine the effectiveness of Ukraine's system of government today.
A specific anecdote illustrates the disconnect: a well-known legal expert dismissed the group's proposals for a different societal foundation as "fantasy," insisting the existing Constitution just needs to be followed—yet when pressed on whether she believed this was actually achievable, she admitted her own faith in enforcing the existing document was, if anything, even more fantastical than the group's proposal.

Two Competing Approaches to Constitutional Change

The speakers identify a fundamental split in how different groups have approached constitutional reform:

Refoundation approach: Acknowledge that the current system doesn't work, admit that Ukraine suffered a defeat (in war) for which the entire political class bears responsibility, fully "lustrate" (purge) that class, and build genuinely new principles of governance with new structures—not just new faces in old structures.
Incremental approach: Treat the existing system as basically functional; simply replace personnel (e.g., bring in "new faces," including veterans) while keeping the same structures intact.

These two approaches are described as fundamentally incompatible. The authors argue that if the refoundational approach is not chosen, the Institutsiya document itself would be worthless—since it was designed as an instrument of genuine refounding, not mere reform.

Development Process and Competing Groups

Work on the new constitution proceeded through several competing groups, differing not just in theoretical content but in fundamental approach: some viewed the constitution as a tool to refound the country, while others saw it merely as a political instrument for gaining or consolidating power.
The current text originated partly from a public "social contract" signing, evolved through association with a particular political force during an election cycle, and was later reworked and adopted by the current authors once that political project lost relevance.
The book was first published in a very limited print run (spoken of humorously as being so obscure that readers couldn't even tell what a cover photo depicted). It has already been presented in Russian and English editions and distributed to multiple countries; an English-language version is being prepared for Amazon distribution.
Only 100 copies of "Institutsiya" were printed, priced at 1000 hryvnias each; the authors joke about doubting whether many Ukrainians will be willing to pay this price, though copies are reportedly already selling.

Key Design Principles

Completed Legal Document, Not Just an Idea

The authors deliberately decided the Institutsiya should be a complete, finished legal document, even if imperfect or overly long, rather than a vague set of ideas. Reasoning:

Society will need such a ready document at the next "constitutional moment"—a crisis (such as war) that forces reconsideration of the social contract.
In past crises, society recognized the old system had failed but could never articulate what should replace it. The authors wanted a ready answer prepared in advance.
The document is designed to not be permanent: it explicitly includes mechanisms for how it can be amended, reflecting the understanding that constitutions must be periodically revisited, especially in a fast-changing world. The framers view constitution-making as an ongoing process ("constituent process"), not a one-time act.

Diagnosing Why the Current Constitution Failed

The core defect is the absence of guarantee mechanisms with direct legal force. Rights and freedoms are declared but implementation is deferred to subsidiary laws, which in turn defer to procedures, then to bylaws, then to instructions, then to informal verbal orders—resulting in a system governed by bureaucratic instructions rather than the rule of law.
Despite being largely declarative, provisions like Article 5 and Article 13 (declaring the people as the source of power and owners of national wealth) are still valued by society as achievements worth preserving and building upon in future iterations, even though they were never truly implemented.

The Central New Principle: Co-ownership and Co-governance

The Institutsiya reframes the constitutional order around a principle of shared ownership and shared governance (co-ownership/co-management) of common wealth, replacing older notions of "people" and "citizens" with the concept of everyone as co-owners of common assets.
As co-owners, citizens could theoretically calculate and claim a share of income generated by common resources (cited figures of hypothetical national wealth around 135 million or 1,440 million in some valuation), creating direct incentive for citizens to care about increasing and protecting that shared wealth.
A crucial distinction is drawn between "resource" thinking and "asset" thinking: Ukraine's future should not be conceived of as a country whose resources get divided among a shrinking population (making a smaller population seem more "profitable" per capita), but as a country of enduring assets held in common—not sold off, privatized, or divided piecemeal, but preserved as shared long-term wealth for present and future generations.
This addresses a paradox in the current constitution's declaration that land and natural resources "belong to the people"—a purely declarative clause with no actual mechanism connecting the population to real benefit from those resources.

Debate: What Constitutes a "Republic"?

A vigorous internal debate emerges about the philosophical basis of a Republic:

One view: A Republic exists when there is a shared common matter/asset (res publica—a "common cause"/"common thing") to be co-managed; shared governance over something concrete creates the political community.
Opposing view: A Republic arises first from people wanting to have a shared future together—the desire for relationship and trust precedes and creates the "common cause," not vice versa. Simply sharing a resource (like land or wealth) doesn't automatically create genuine community; people who don't want relationships with each other are not a Republic, no matter what they share.
This is likened to a "chicken and egg" problem, but one side argues there's no real paradox: community is a primordial (foundational) bond that precedes any specific common project, and cannot be manufactured retroactively by pointing to shared assets.
The relationships that constitute a Republic extend beyond human-to-human bonds to include humanity's relationship to the land, to future generations, and to the past—especially significant for Ukraine given archetypal cultural perceptions of land and lineage.
A real-world example is raised: Ukraine's shrinking population (from 50 million to 30 million and declining) shows that simply offering people a stake in resources or a "share" of national wealth does not stop emigration—because people who don't trust that the promised share will ever materialize, or who lack a sense of belonging, leave regardless of resource-based incentives.

Trust as the Foundation

The discussion pivots to the idea that a Republic fundamentally requires trust among its members; without trust, no republican or economic promises will hold people together.
There's disagreement over whether such foundational trust/community can be built on rational, articulable grounds or whether it is inherently non-rational/pre-rational—compared to love, which is felt first and only rationalized afterward.
The framers note that ethnic identity alone has proven insufficient to sustain unity through a prolonged war (it may suffice for a year, but not longer without either continued voluntary trust or coercion).
They conclude that what unites or divides people are shared representations/ideas (uявлення)—and the more primitive these ideas are, the more they tend to divide rather than unite.
It's revealed that before drafting the Institutsiya itself, the same group produced an even more foundational document, the "Treaty on Politiya" (Договір про Політію), meant to establish principles of co-existence and trust as a precondition for the constitutional text itself. This treaty attempted to formalize principles of trust and shared existence, which may include rational, irrational, and emotional/value-based elements, not purely logical ones.
The session's first part ends on a lighter, half-joking note, with a proposed (but rejected) idea to add a punitive article criminalizing "breach of trust" within the new political framework.

The Principle of "Tsenz" (Qualification Requirement)

One of roughly 39 principled innovations in the Institutsiya is the introduction of tsenz — a qualification requirement for holding professional positions involved in managing common wealth.

Since all citizens are co-owners of common assets, professional management of that wealth is required — it cannot be entrusted arbitrarily (the speakers joke that "lovers, drivers, and everyone else" cannot manage collective property without qualification).
The document introduces a complex, open, hierarchical structure for obtaining and periodically reconfirming qualification at different levels:
- At the general civic level, one must understand the constitution and the structure of the society one lives in.
- At higher levels, one must understand the functioning of organizational structures.
- At the political level, deeper competence is required.
- At the strategic level — a level of governance the speakers say currently does not exist in Ukraine despite constant talk of "strategy" — the highest competence is required.
The panel criticizes Ukraine's current system for having almost no role for intellect, thought, or education in governance; motivation to pursue education has collapsed because there is no real link between competence and access to power.
They acknowledge that the word tsenz carries negative connotations in the post-Soviet ear (associated with censorship, property qualifications, residency qualifications, historical exclusion), but insist the concept here is different: it is about defining who is competent to occupy specific management roles, not about banning or restricting people's rights.
Importantly, tsenz already functions informally in modern society (e.g., job requirements for higher education, experience, language skills), but paradoxically it currently applies least at the highest levels of political power (president, ministers), where anyone can be appointed without proven competence.
They note historical anxiety about combining qualification requirements with democracy: the "right to vote for everyone" was a hard-won achievement of the extension of democratic rights, so tying voting or officeholding to competence testing feels contradictory to some. The speakers argue this conflates "vulgar democracy" (universal suffrage without regard to competence) with "competence-based democracy", and stress that "the right to elect" and "the right to be elected" are two different things.
They give an analogy: just as a driver must know traffic rules before taking the wheel of a car, someone who wants to help "drive" the country (or even to vote knowledgeably) should understand basic principles of how the Republic functions. The Institutsiya proposes that in order to receive voting rights, citizens should be required to pass a basic test on understanding the Republic's foundational principles — what they are voting for.
They reject the current practice where a president deals with sewage issues or a village elder deals with NATO integration — governance competence levels must correspond to governance levels, both to prevent manipulation and to make vote-buying and position-buying much harder (raising the "cost" of votes/positions in terms of unmanipulability, not literal price).
An important reverse side of tsenz is emphasized: it not only grants access to power but also shows people the limits of their own competence — preventing the current problem where anyone who reaches power believes they know everything and can do everything, or where "professional managers" jump between completely unrelated ministries (health one day, economy the next) without any real expertise.
Crucially, failing to pass qualification tests does not deprive anyone of basic rights: everyone still receives their "republican share" of common wealth regardless. Qualification only governs access to managing the shared commons — it doesn't apply to private property, where individuals act with their own judgment freely.

Relationship to Nature, Children, and People with Disabilities

The discussion moves to a broader philosophical reorientation embedded in the Institutsiya:

Nature is reconceived not as a resource but as a separate subject toward which humanity assumes responsibility, rather than something to exploit.
Children are currently defined purely by a quantitative marker (calendar age), which is inadequate — some 13–14-year-olds are far more mature than many adults who remain childlike well into their 60s or 70s (illustrated by an anecdote about someone bribable with candy). The Institutsiya challenges this purely numerical definition of maturity, including as it relates to civic participation like voting.
People with disabilities: the document rejects the framing of "inclusion," arguing that the very language of inclusivity implies a prior act of exclusion. Instead, the Institutsiya calls for mutual adaptation — society must adapt to people with disabilities just as much as they are expected to adapt to society, especially given that this issue will become more urgent after the war.

A New Hierarchy of Values: Dignity Above Life

The Institutsiya introduces a philosophical hierarchy never before articulated in Ukrainian constitutional tradition:

Dignity (highest value — where the immanent and transcendent meet, the existential boundary between the human and the divine)
Rights gained within the Republic
Freedom (a social/contractual reality, not mere license)
Life (placed last)

This means a person may sacrifice their life for freedom, for rights within the Republic, or for dignity itself — but not the reverse.
Traditional Ukrainian constitutional thought (and most others) has placed life as the supreme value; this reordering is described as a genuine transcendent innovation, one that even few other constitutions have attempted, though German post-WWII constitutional thinking is cited as having moved in a similar direction (centering dignity), even without producing an entirely new constitution.

Mechanisms for Co-management ("Spivupravlinnya")

The Institutsiya provides concrete mechanisms — absent from the current constitutional/legal model — allowing citizens to participate in co-management at multiple levels: influencing decisions of public companies, local community (hromada) governance, and matters that concern everyone via referenda and polls.
Participation in such collective decision-making would itself require a form of qualification (tsenz), but crucially, the resulting voice would be genuinely counted, not merely a simulation of "public discussion" as often happens now. Mechanisms include the ability to recall officials or delegated representatives.
This is presented as qualitatively different from earlier Ukrainian constitutional drafts (including from the 1990s), which lacked such institutions entirely.
Tied to this is the concept of the "republican share" (respublikanska chastka) and an efficiency index (Pi) for all levels of governance: if the republican share of common income grows, it signals government is functioning well; if it falls, this signals dysfunction, giving every citizen a direct, visible measure of governmental performance.
The document also redefines territorial organization around the concept of society as a "hromada of hromady" (community of communities), introducing a fundamentally different principle of local self-governance and territorial unity than the current model — though this topic is flagged as too large to fully unpack in the session.
It's noted, almost as an aside, that the Institutsiya's transitional provisions envision movement toward digital voting over time, and that while a parliament still exists in the document, the structures of president and parliament are reconceived rather than simply retained as in the current constitution.

Q&A: Co-ownership, Shared Purpose, and National Identity

A questioner (Dats or similar) raises philosophical objections and questions:

On the meaning of "common property": A questioner challenges the co-ownership concept with a hypothetical — if I own a table and declare it "common property," does that actually create shared use? The panel responds that just declaring something shared doesn't automatically mean people will act as if it's shared — it requires an actual mechanism of realization, not just declaration.
On what actually unites a nation: The panel revisits the tension between co-ownership as a unifying principle versus other bases of unity, such as shared ethnicity, language, and collective memory/history, especially as demonstrated by Ukraine's ongoing wartime experience — noting an earlier argument that shared assets alone ("do we have tanks? No. Do we have a shared language? Somewhat.") don't necessarily forge genuine community; ethnic/cultural bonds may matter more than resource-sharing in practice.
An anecdote is shared about a very short (under 8-minute) livestream the previous day involving volunteers helping children of fallen soldiers — the interview collapsed after the interviewee's team later complained that the show had been conducted in Russian, illustrating deep and sometimes absurd tensions around language identity in Ukraine even amid urgent humanitarian issues.

Debate: Language, Nationalism, and Post-War Community

A sharp disagreement emerges between two speakers over how to handle divisive identity issues like language within the Republic's governance framework:

One view (associated with "Datsyuk's concept," which a speaker explicitly rejects) holds that Ukraine must first pass through and complete a period of nation-building/nationalizing nationalism, ideally finishing this process during the current war, before being able to move into a genuinely post-national, cohabitation-based ("spivbuttya") political order. Attempting to bypass or silence this process — treating questions of national liberation, decolonization, and identity as things to be "bracketed out" or resolved through administrative mechanisms (like a hypothetical "language inspector") — is seen as dangerous, potentially even provoking civil conflict, because it appears to dismiss and devalue the ongoing struggle for national liberation and identity during wartime.
The opposing view argues that governance structures (like the Republic's dispute-resolution mechanisms) exist precisely to reconcile ("vladnannya") differences such as language conflicts through appeal to a neutral third party/institution rather than direct confrontation, and that the actual 2020-era constitutional draft deliberately handled contentious issues (like language) by relegating them to separate articles, deferring to interpretation, or bracketing them out where full consensus could not be reached — since the document was substantively finished by January 2020, before COVID.
The disagreement remains unresolved, with one participant insisting that primordial matters of identity, language, and belonging (illustrated poignantly by a personal example of a Ukrainian family whose native language for generations has been Russian or Yiddish, despite centuries of residence in Ukraine) cannot simply be legislated away or treated as secondary to institutional mechanisms of co-management.

The session closes this section on an open, unresolved tension between institutional/procedural approaches to unity (co-ownership, shared governance mechanisms) and deeper, harder-to-legislate questions of collective identity, trust, and belonging that some participants see as prior and foundational to any republic.

The Language Conflict Debate Continues

The disagreement over language policy sharpens into a concrete scenario debate:

One participant raises a hypothetical: what happens when Ukrainian-speaking activists in a city confront Russian-speaking residents on the street, effectively violating those residents' constitutional rights to speak the language they choose? Concern is raised about who would even complain to an ombudsman about such incidents, since no institution currently addresses this kind of everyday language conflict.
The counter-argument stresses that the Institutsiya's own principle of "co-existence" (spivbuttya) requires listening to both sides — including those for whom the Russian language itself has become a painful trigger. The suggestion arises, half ironically, that people who are bothered by a language could simply create their own designated spaces (a "Ukrainian-language café," for instance) — a proposal immediately criticized as itself a violation of constitutional rights and something that would provoke a symmetrical backlash.
One speaker is accused of holding a "nationalizing nationalism" position that contradicts the very constitution he claims to defend, given the current constitution does not carve out special crisis-based exceptions for language policy. He defends the position by arguing that under conditions of war and existential threat, Ukraine must first fully pass through and complete a stage of nationalizing nationalism before it can move to a genuinely post-national, co-existence-based model — and that this process should ideally conclude as quickly as possible, even within the current war.
The opposing view insists this is precisely the kind of built-in crisis clause absent from the constitution and calls this reasoning inconsistent: if the constitution "doesn't work" and must be circumvented, that undermines rule of law itself.

Primordial Bonds vs. Social Contract

A key philosophical fault line emerges: are there primordial things (identity, language, ancestral belonging) that precede and outweigh any negotiated co-ownership or social contract? One speaker insists these must be discussed as foundational, not treated as secondary administrative matters to be "settled" by institutions or a hypothetical "language inspector."
Others respond that most people's attachment to language and identity is actually social rather than primordial — a matter of habituation and belonging within a community rather than an essential, unchangeable metaphysical fact. The two speakers acknowledge they hold genuinely different positions and are not simply talking past each other.
The tension is amplified by a comment noting that war has become so totalizing that the population risks disappearing entirely before any unifying "mono-myth" could absorb everyone — reinforcing the argument that no single monolithic model (linguistic, national, or otherwise) can hold a diverse society together; any attempt at mono-modality is inherently destructive.
One speaker rejects being compared to controversial nationalist figures, insisting there's a principled difference between his position (open dialogue, no coercion) and coercive ethnocentric enforcement (illustrated by a comparison to a historical figure known for harassing Russian-speakers). The other participant says he doesn't feel the positions are meaningfully different, since in both cases one side isn't truly listening to the other.
The panel concludes this specific disagreement cannot be resolved live on air, but stresses that this is exactly the kind of tension the Institutsiya is meant to work through: not by imposing one universal model, but by establishing principles that let diverse value-communities live according to their own norms while still remaining part of one larger political union (politiya). The document's answer to "why are we together" is not a single imposed identity, but a framework of mutual accommodation ("vladnannya" — reconciliation) among different communities.

On the Book's Title

The word "Inostitutsiya" is explained: it deliberately plays on "inaksha" (different/other) plus "institutsiya" (institution) — meaning roughly "an institution of otherness" or "a different kind of institution." The title works with this double meaning in both Ukrainian and (loosely) Russian.

Audience Questions: Property, Nature, and Animals

On whether shared assets alone can create genuine community: the panelists reaffirm that private property is only one narrow, resource-based way of framing "assets" — the Institutsiya defines assets much more broadly, and the concept of ownership itself has been reworked through several prior discussions. Notably, they state that nothing living can be treated as property in their framework.
This spins into a debate about ecosystems, animals, and land: since living things (including ecosystems) cannot be "owned," questions arise about enforcement — e.g., should there be "patrols" checking whether people clean up after their dogs, or aesthetic inspectors ensuring waste is disposed of "beautifully"? The tone becomes half-serious, half-comedic, but underscores a genuine point: the Institutsiya opens up unresolved territory regarding relationships between humans, animals, ecosystems, and even future entities like artificial intelligence or extraterrestrial life — these are framed as future discussion topics rather than settled doctrine.
The panel reiterates that the Institutsiya is not a command to be obeyed but an invitation to public discussion about principles of coexistence, community, and relationships with nature and each other. They acknowledge they don't expect the document to be implemented exactly as written, and that widespread disagreement (even about pets) is a sign the discussion is working as intended.
They mention that even one of the original contributors to the document, the late constitutional lawyer Borys Bezpaliy — despite coming from a classical constitutional-law background — agreed that principles must precede formal legal structure, and that the document is fundamentally philosophical before it is legal. They also recall negotiating and ultimately removing references to God from early drafts.

Qualification (Tsenz): Who Decides, and Can It Work in Practice?

A skeptical audience question challenges the feasibility of the qualification (tsenz) system:

How are the levels of tsenz actually defined, who determines them, and who controls the process by which a citizen moves up through them? The response: everything is meant to be transparent, with clear requirements and clear oversight — comparable to today's mechanisms like standardized testing (ZNO) for entering higher education, but applied to political and administrative advancement. The framework establishes principles, but the concrete implementation would be built out and refined by the communities and governance bodies that adopt it, not fully pre-specified.
A deeper objection follows: even the best-designed formal mechanism means nothing if Ukraine's real "deep state" — informal networks of coercion, telephone justice, and institutional capture (referencing bodies like NABU, SAP, GPU, SBU) — continues to operate behind the scenes, meaning a manicurist or an unqualified figure could still become a minister or ambassador regardless of formal tsenz rules.
The panel's answer: no legal instrument, however well-designed, can substitute for a genuine collective will to change. The Institutsiya offers a mechanism — transparent, discussable, revisable, accountable qualification criteria — but if society doesn't actually want to change entrenched habits, no document will force it to. They point out that the current system already has some qualification requirements (education, language skills) but these are least enforced at the very top of power, which the Institutsiya's transparent, revisable tsenz system is meant to correct.
On implementation strategy: since Ukraine's existing institutions are already deeply entrenched, real change historically has come not from top-down reform of the same structures but through building parallel institutions alongside old ones. An example given is the police force, which functioned well and earned public trust as long as it was a separate, competing structure from the old Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) — but degraded once it was reintegrated and absorbed back into the old system. The suggestion is that similarly, new republican structures based on the Institutsiya's principles might need to develop as parallel, competing institutions rather than replacing existing ones outright, allowing them to prove their value over generations.

Majority Rule, Historical Precedent, and Limits of Any Document

One speaker recalls that a founding conviction behind the original constitutional drafting effort was that the majority is not always right — majorities tend to act conservatively, especially during moments requiring strategic change, so the Institutsiya intentionally builds in mechanisms to prevent total majority domination.
The historical example of Atatürk is discussed: he pushed through a modernizing, Western-oriented institutional project in Turkey despite the conservative instincts of the majority, succeeding because he had (1) genuine belief in his mission, (2) a concrete plan he moved to implement quickly, (3) real instruments of coercion (used ruthlessly against Kurds, Armenians, and others), and — notably — (4) no internet to contend with. It's suggested a fifth factor was the broader crisis of imperial collapse after WWI, which created conditions ripe for radical restructuring.
This raises the question of whether the 1917 Bolshevik revolution — which succeeded even in an era with early mass communication — suggests that revolutionary top-down mono-models are inherently easier to popularize ("easier to sell") than a document like the Institutsiya, which explicitly embraces diversity, pluralism, and negotiated coexistence rather than a single unifying doctrine. The panel argues this is precisely the harder but more honest path: agreeing on principles of non-domination among different value systems, rather than imposing one mono-model by force.

Closing Remarks

The session wraps up with announcements: an in-person meetup is planned for Sunday at 16:00 at the office (open invitation, referencing an absent participant's birthday), and sales/promotion are launching for both the Inostitutsiya book and a book by Olia Mykhailova, with links provided in the stream's description. The hosts thank viewers for active chat participation, note that the full chat discussion remains available to read afterward, and close with an expression of resolve amid the war — encouraging viewers not to lose heart, affirming that the enemy will be defeated and victory will come.