National currency as key factor of sovereignty national resilience: report from public dialogue with Pyshnyy Yushchenko

On 26 February, the National Bank of Ukraine hosted the inaugural event of the joint project with LB.ua, “30 Years of Hryvnia” — a public dialogue on the role of the national currency as a key pillar of sovereignty and resilience. The discussion featured NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy and Ukraine’s third President, Viktor Yushchenko, who headed the central bank from 1993 to 2000.

“Russia’s current war against Ukraine is a war of meaning, identity and values — not only of armies. Ukraine must reclaim everything Russia tried to erase for centuries. That is why the national currency, the hryvnia, is more than money,” Pyshnyy said. He stressed that Ukraine’s currency underpins the country’s sovereignty, independence and resilience.

Photo: Zoryana Stelmakh

NBU Governor Andriy Pyshnyy

Viktor Yushchenko, in turn, said that in the early 1990s the National Bank of Ukraine had proposed the hryvnia as the national currency and the shah as its fractional unit instead of the kopeck, but the initiative was not supported by the then markedly pro-Russian Verkhovna Rada.

“That part of the Ukrainian community could not part ways with Russia, the ‘Russian world’ and so on. It was difficult to push this issue through,” said the NBU head in 1993–2000.

Photo: Zoryana Stelmakh

Viktor Yushchenko

What unfolded around the name of the fractional unit and the implementation of the monetary reform — with three attempts before it was finally carried out in 1996 — shows that nothing in these matters is insignificant, Andriy Pyshnyy noted, adding that it was only then that Viktor Yushchenko succeeded in delivering the reform.

A full transcript of the dialogue — covering the history of the hryvnia, current monetary policy, the National Bank of Ukraine’s work during blackouts, and the future, including a potential digital hryvnia and a possible transition to the euro in the event of EU membership — will be published soon on LB.ua. For now, we bring you a report from the scene.