russia’s full-scale invasion in Ukraine changed all the plans of the International Renaissance Foundation for 2022. Still, 2022 was the most productive year in the history of the Foundation, both in terms of the number of grants and the amount of assistance.
We became witnesses and participants of events that changed world history. Some were tragic, some gave new impetus for development. We found strength and inspiration in our belief that Open Societies always eventually win in the struggle against the Closed ones.
And therefore, Ukraine will definitely win.
In the first weeks of the full-scale war, the Foundation’s office in Lviv, western Ukraine, temporarily became our main base. At that time, volunteer doctors were stationed in our Kyiv premises. However, already in the middle of April, we resumed the full operation of the main Kyiv office. At the same time, the operations of the Foundation never stopped – during the first week of the great war, we completely rebuilt the program activities for the sake of the victory of the Ukrainian people.
We set ourselves three main goals, aimed at the past, present and future: to help those affected by the war; to preserve democracy and civil society in Ukraine; to take care of the future of Ukraine after the Ukrainian victory. Thanks to the joint work of the International Renaissance Foundation, the entire network of Open Society Foundations and our partners, we have made significant progress against every goal.
The IRF underwent changes and transformations and came out of the tragic 2022 year stronger, more resilient, even more thirsty to make Ukraine better.
We have collected all our achievements and work results in our Annual report, which you can read here on our website.