Many thanks to my dear friend Madeleine for sharing the announcement for this webinar! An outstanding lineup of speakers.
“Ukrainian Struggle Explained: The Maidan Revolution, Resistance to Military Intervention and Citizens’ Organizing”
ICNC Live Webinar Discussion – open to the public
Wednesday, April 9, 2014 / 12:00pm – 1:45pm EST
An ICNC-moderated webinar discussion will bring together four Ukrainian guests with backgrounds in academia, journalism, activism, and policy to talk about the political conflict in Ukraine. A number of false narratives have emerged that branded the Maidan Revolution as violent, driven by radicals and external powers. After the invasion of Crimea and its annexation to Russia some commentators suggested that the outcome of the referendum reflected the preferences of the majority of the Crimean population and the political change represented by the annexation of Crimea to Russia was in fact engineered peacefully, which contrasted with the supposedly violent nature of the Maidan Revolution that brought down the Yanukovych regime.
This webinar will address the prevailing misconceptions that emerged around the conflict in Ukraine. It will discuss the origin, goals, strategies and tactics behind the Ukrainian Maidan movement, as well as its composition and its responses to the state-sponsored repression. Webinar discussants will talk about the role of a violent minority – a radical flank in the movement – and reflect on the impact of external actors in the Ukrainian struggle. How, and more importantly why was the Yanukovych regime ultimately brought down? In the final part of the conversation, the speakers will offer their views on the ongoing mobilization of the Ukrainian society against Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and against a possible Russian invasion of other parts of Ukraine, as well as civic organizing to support but also pressure the Ukrainian government to implement needed reforms.
Speakers
-Nataliya Gumenyuk, Ukrainian journalist, Co-Founder of Hromadske.TV
-Olga Onuch, Newton Fellow, University of Oxford / Research Fellow, Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
-Dmytro Potekhin, Trainer and consultant in strategic planning and nonviolent resistance
-Olena Tregub, Policy expert of the Institute for Euro-Atlantic Cooperation and a writer for Kyiv Post
Anka in Kyiv 