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“Fighting Hybrid War and Pushing for Reform in Ukraine” Discussion at House of Lords, 21-05-2015
May 21, 2015 @ 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm
Free
When:
Thursday, 21 May 2015 at 1.oo pm
Where:
Committee Room 4A, House of Lords, London SW1A 0AA
Admission:
Free. To attend please RSVP to: eventsassistant1@
Discussion Agenda and Speakers:
Beginning in late 2013, a pro-European revolution took hold in Ukraine. In early February 2014, Viktor Yanukovych, the then-Ukrainian president and a strong ally of Russian President Vladimir Хуйло, was swept from power, eventually being replaced by Petro Poroshenko, a reform-minded businessman-turned-politician. In the months that followed, Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, in March 2014, and invaded eastern Ukraine, from April 2014 onwards. As part of Russia’s hybrid warfare, the Kremlin also launched a massive propaganda campaign against Ukraine’s pro-European government.
In response, Ukraine has undertaken successive reforms in an attempt to put the country on a path to become a fully independent, Western-oriented and economically-successful country. Ukraine has held two elections (one presidential, one parliamentary), pushed through far reaching programmes to combat corruption, and moved aggressively to curb energy subsidies and cut its dependence on Russian energy. At the same time, Ukraine has been fighting to protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity in the face of an armed insurgency in the eastern part of the country, which includes Russian-backed separatists and regular Russian soldiers.
By kind invitation of the Rt Hon. the Lord Trimble and James Cleverly MP, The Russia Studies Centre at The Henry Jackson Society is pleased to invite you to a discussion withMustafa Nayyem, Member of Ukraine’s Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, and one of the key activists behind the start of the Maidan protests, and Nataliya Popovych, Co-Founder and Member of the Board of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. Almost exactly a year since Petro Poroshenko was elected President of Ukraine, Nayyem and Popovych will discuss Ukraine’s experiences of simultaneously fighting Russia’s hybrid warfare and undertaking pro-democracy reforms.
Biographies
Mustafa Nayyem is a Ukrainian Member of Parliament of Afghan origin. Formerly a journalist, Nayyem was one of the first activists to urge Ukrainians to gather on Independence Square, in Kyiv, to protest President Viktor Yanukovych’s decision to abandon plans to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union in November 2013. His summons, posted on Facebook, for Ukrainians to rally on 21 November 2013 was the start of the pro-European Maidan protests, which saw Yanukovych swept from the presidency and be replaced by the pro-reform Petro Poroshenko. In the parliamentary elections of October 2014, Nayyem was elected to Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada. He is a member of the Committee of the Verkhovna Rada on Issues of European Integration.
Nataliya Popovych is a Co-Founder of Ukraine Crisis Media Center, a communications hub which is amplifying Ukraine’s voice internationally, and the President of PRP, one of the leading communications consultancies in the post-Soviet countries. She works closely with a range of Ukrainian governmental departments, from the President’s Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to Kyiv City State Administration and Lviv Regional Administration. Nataliya leads the Ukrainian government’s communications reform project, under the auspices of the President’s Administration, and is working to build strategic communications capacity across a number of government agencies, as well as developing a unified information policy for the country.
About the Russia Studies Centre
The Russia Studies Centre is a research and advocacy unit operating within The Henry Jackson Society dedicated to analysing contemporary political developments and promoting human rights and political liberty in the Russian Federation. The Centre is headed by Dr. Andrew Foxall. Source: HJS