Has the modern world truly fallen into an autocracy trap with no way out? Speakers at the Lviv Media Forum (LMF) 2026 say freedom is still possible, but it won’t come without a fight. From Rubryka.
Looking at Ukraine, Georgia, Myanmar, and crises around the world, participants in a recent panel discussion hosted by the Lviv Media Forum (LMF) 2026 argued that as dictatorships increasingly back one another with impunity, free societies can no longer afford to wait for someone else to save them. Here’s what they said about fighting back – and the tools that can help defeat autocracy.
The Autocracy Trap: Is It Real?
Igor Blazevic, founder and former director of the One World human rights film festival, believes it is a mistake to assume that autocracies have already won. The democratic optimism of the 1990s is gone, he says, but that does not mean we have reached the “end of history.”
According to Blazevic, humanity is in the middle of a historic struggle. Around the world, people want freedom, dignity, and the right to choose their own future. In the meantime, powerful forces are working to undermine democratic governance.
Autocracies now openly prop up other autocracies – that, Blazevic argues, is one of the defining problems of our time. They support each other in waging wars and suppressing their populations. Democracies, by contrast, often hold themselves back. They limit support for people fighting for freedom and democracy around the world, and they are increasingly hesitant to defend themselves.
“That is creating the imbalance, and Myanmar is a good example,” says the One World founder. “At this moment, the brutal military junta is actively assisted by Russia and China to wage a genocidal war against the people of the country, and we as democracies have now abandoned any assistance there. Until recently, we were helping them a little bit to document human crimes and war crimes. In this struggle, we cannot win or prevail if one side is investing in an active war, huge resources, and we are investing in documenting crimes.”
Blazevic says Ukraine is both a painful and inspiring example of how societies should respond when democracies retreat into self-isolation. The first lesson is simple: rely on yourself.
“As long as you are expecting that somebody outside will come and help you, I say you are to be defeated, temporarily, but to be very painfully defeated,” the expert adds.
Blazevic shared a parable about a small bird. When a forest caught fire and all the animals fled, the bird kept carrying drops of water in its beak to fight the flames. When others said the effort was pointless, the bird replied, “Let me do my job.” Eventually, the gods sent rain and extinguished the fire.
“Sometimes – or very often today – I don’t accept that rational understanding that you cannot extinguish the fire. Just do what you can,” says Blazevic.
How to Stop a Slide into Autocracy?
Angelina Kariakina, co-founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab and editor and author of The Reckoning Project Films, noted that societies must be united and resilient if they want to keep fighting, as Ukraine has done. But how can they tell whether they are moving in the right direction?
Yevhen Hlibovytsky, co-founder and CEO of the Frontier Institute, says two key indicators can reveal whether a society is sliding toward autocracy.
The first is agency. By agency, Hlibovytsky means the ability to think critically and independently, ask difficult questions, and live with uncertainty and doubt. Autocracies, however, are hostile environments for doubt. They demand conformity and obedience to whatever political line the authorities impose.
Because autocracies take different forms, he says, the real question is: are they crushing people’s agency, or does society still have the strength to reclaim it?
As an example of the latter, Hlibovytsky points to Hungary under Viktor Orban. He describes it as a relatively mild form of autocracy – one that society has still been able to resist. China and Russia, he argues, are a different story. Their totalitarian systems have stripped away so much agency that even a shift toward a less extreme form of autocracy would be an improvement over the status quo.
“The agency, I think, is one thing to follow. This is something we often do not understand in the West, because the idea there is that the state is secondary to society. It reflects society. Therefore, personal agency is not that important. The strength of the institutions is important. Well, Ukraine shows that’s not necessarily the case. Institutions can be captured, institutions can fail, and then, if institutions fail, what do you do?” asks Hlibovytsky.
The second warning sign is hubris. Hlibovytsky asks whether we have become so arrogant that we stop recognizing the agency of others and lose the ability to feel their pain. He sees a growing arrogance in politics and the media: the belief that some people know better than everyone else. It shows up in business, government, and tech alike.
According to Hlibovytsky, an arrogant society that lacks empathy, is indifferent to other people’s suffering, has weakened agency, and has too few ways to protect itself can end up “in a really dark place.”
“This is why in some cases I would actually choose Ukraine, not because I’m Ukrainian, but because there’s this newly arrived feeling of freedom bursting versus many more developed societies that are actually on a path to lose their freedom simply because they are too comfortable and they’re dependent on this comfort,” says Hlibovytsky.
Hlibovytsky also stressed that Ukraine has a strong sense of urgency when it comes to change and self-defense that many democracies lack. The modern world sold people the idea that everything would eventually be fine. In reality, he says, that is not true. “We can all die.”
As a nation living on the frontier, Ukraine understands that every mistake made while defending democracy can come at a devastating cost.
Is There a Way out of Autocracy? The Case of Georgia
Media development consultant Nino Robakidze believes her country, Georgia, has indeed fallen into the trap of autocracy. Independent media and civil society groups, she says, are facing unprecedented pressure and repression – the harshest crackdown in Georgia’s post-independence history.
According to Robakidze, Georgia now has more political prisoners per capita than Russia. Over the last 18 months, the Georgian government has passed more than 50 new laws, most of which restrict freedom of speech, assembly, and peaceful protest:
“You can spend a few days in jail for standing on the sidewalk, and we have already [seen] dozens of such cases. If you repeat this action, you can spend up to one year in prison.”
Yet Robakidze says Georgian society refuses to see this as the end – or to accept autocracy as its fate. Instead, many Georgians view the current situation as a temporary setback and believe a return to democracy is still possible. That belief in a future beyond autocracy is what drives Georgian civil society today.
Robakidze says this is a new kind of civil society for Georgia. It is not dependent on donor funding or shaped by international agendas. It consists of genuine grassroots movements that are not tied to organizations or institutions. They are united by a simple question: “How do we get out of this situation and return to the path of freedom?”
This, she says, is a society with strong agency.
Robakidze also points out that different parts of civil society – independent media, academia, and others – are now more connected than ever before.
“There had been no connection that we found during the crisis – the understanding that we cannot be occasional partners. We need to be as one front, very organized, and we also need to have our own narrative. Being against the regime, kleptocracy, or oligarchy is not enough,” says Robakidze. “It’s also very important to talk to the bigger groups of society about what you are fighting for. What is the agenda that you are proposing? What does the future you’re fighting for look like? How does it look for me, look for a student, look for a mother, look for families of Georgia.”
Robakidze also acknowledges the obstacles. One major problem is Georgia’s weak political parties. She argues that they have been unable to channel public anger and mass protests into real political action and results.
She also notes that politicians are facing serious consequences, making it harder for them to do their work. One example is Elene Khoshtaria, one of Georgia’s most prominent politicians, who is currently in prison for writing on a campaign banner for a candidate running for mayor of Tbilisi.
“This feeling that we are building a genuinely focused society – focused on Georgian problems, Georgian future, and Georgian idea of freedom – is really a very good thing to observe and to be part of,” says Robakidze.
Role of Media in Times of Crisis
Many people today debate whether the public still wants the truth – or prefers to avoid it.
Blazevic believes that what people want above all else is dignity. And, in his view, today’s media often fails to provide that.
He argues that civil society and the media have become part of what he calls the “counter-elite,” while a large portion of society has been left behind.
“There is something that I call ‘abandoned society’ which we as liberal democrats, media, and civil society claim that we are representing, but we don’t. We are profoundly disconnected from people at large. Populists learned how to manipulate them,” says Blazevic.
For that reason, Blazevic says, media organizations face a difficult task: rebuilding their connection with regular people. He argues that the only way to do that is to treat people with respect and help restore their sense of dignity.
The media, the expert says, must become more humble. To illustrate the point, Blazevic recalls postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina.
After the war ended in the mid-1990s, donors from around the world arrived in the country to launch projects. For seven or eight years, Bosnia experienced a booming civil society and cultural sector.
Yet, according to Blazevic, only about 3,000 people in Sarajevo, the country’s capital, were actually involved in those projects. Outside that bubble was a society that was devastated, traumatized, and hurting. No one listened to those people. No one cared to hear their stories.
“Who has done that? Two Wahhabis who came to my neighborhood opened a mobile shop and basically spent two years just helping people, selling phones. Five years later, we had a mosque in my neighborhood,” says Blazevic. Seven years later, the two men who had integrated themselves into community life wielded more influence in the neighborhood than the entire foreign-funded civil society sector.
Robakidze agreed with Blazevic. She said that, for years, Georgia’s independent media and civil society organizations had done excellent professional work. But they lost touch with the broader public. Ordinary people had little say in the agendas these organizations set.
The crises of recent years, however, have shown independent media the right path. This is especially true for local online outlets, which have consistently paid more attention to the problems facing regular people.
Today, those outlets are more visible and influential. They are also building a solidarity network called Sinatle Media.
“This is a very interesting initiative to watch: how small, regional, and central online media outlets and professional media outlets are coming together to support each other on one hand and, on the other hand, find this genuine connection with audiences they are serving and build trust,” says Robakidze.
Vladyslav Lesyk is a journalist at Rubryka, Ukraine’s first media outlet working in solutions journalism, where this story originally appeared. The main focus of his articles is on recovery during wartime, community development, and environmental protection. Republished by permission.
