On 17 December 2014 a series of events organized by the Ukraine Crisis Media Center supported by the International Renaissance Foundation took place in Paris. During the events participants discussed the information war Russia is waging on Ukraine.
On 17 December 2014 a series of events organized by the Ukraine Crisis Media Center supported by the International Renaissance Foundation took place in Paris. During the events participants discussed the information war Russia is waging on Ukraine. The Ukrainian delegation included: Natalia Popovych, co-founder of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center, Volodymyr Vyatrovych, historian, philosopher and the Director of the National Institute of Memory, Natalia Gumenuyk, journalist and co-founder of Hromadske TV and Ihor Reshetnyak, civic activist, representative of “Euromaidan” NGO.
The Ukrainian delegation took part in the conference entitled “Kremlin’s information policy as a key component of the hybrid war” that took place in the École Militaire military school in Paris. The event was attended by French journalists, representatives of Ukrainian diaspora and of French civil society. Ukraine’s Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to France Oleh Shamshur took part in the conference. The Ukrainian delegation also met with Anna Kanter, President of Anna Yaroslavna Association within the Ukrainian St. Volodymyr’s Eparchy in Paris and with Victoria Delinger, Secretary of the Association and Hervé Maurey, Senator of France, Head of the France-Ukraine Friendship group.
Another event held by the Ukrainian delegation in Paris was the panel discussion “Ukraine today: tasks and challenges” at the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Civilizations. “Appointment of foreign experts into the Ukrainian government does not mean Ukraine has no competent experts. It signals that there is an understanding in Ukraine that only assisted by other cultures’ representatives of high moral values and with experience of conducting reforms we will be able to save our country,” said Natalia Popovych, co-founder of the Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “We hope that the reforms that our government started will help turn Ukraine into the country that its citizens will be proud of. Firstly Ukraine needs judicial and anti-corruption reforms. As the next step all necessary economic reforms need be conducted to demonstrate Ukraine’s potential to the world. The Ukrainian society is experiencing a strong stress resulting from the latest events in the country. Ukraine needs support from the international community to successfully conduct reforms and stand strong under external aggression,” underlined Natalia Popovych.
Journalist Natalia Gumenyuk underlined that the situation in Ukraine will be changing gradually: “Revolution is a complicated and long-lasting process. I have always understood that the escape of the former president Viktor Yanukovych is just the beginning of this process. Unfortunately there are people left in the country who have power and do not want to break with the old corrupt schemes. The day when Russian troops seized administrative buildings in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea we realized that the second front opened for us.” At the same time Natalia Gumenyuk is convinced that the most important change has already happened in the country: authorities realized that they can no longer be ignoring people’s voice.
During the discussion Ukrainian experts drew attention of the audience to the fact that the conflict in Crimea and in eastern Ukraine is not the consequence of Maidan as the Russian propaganda attempts to depict it. “The conflict in Ukraine started due to interference of external forces that are trying to impede Ukrainians to hold reforms and build a successful country,” underlined Natalia Gumenyuk. Other popular myths of the Russian propaganda were unveiled, for example a theory that the conflict in Ukraine was caused by the US interference into Europe’s affairs. “Russia has created this conflict to save a model of a corrupt state in Europe,” noted Hromadske TV co-founder. The Russian side claims that Maidan changed nothing, one set of oligarchs was changed with another one. “Was the Maidan against the oligarchs? It was against the human rights violations, against the abolishment of Ukraine’s European direction,” commented on the myth historian Volodymyr Vyatrovych.
The events to have taken place in Ukraine from November 2013 till March 2014 are often called a revolution. Volodymyr Vyatrovych is convinced that the events at Maidan that led to the escape of Viktor Yanukovych was an uprising, first part of the revolution. “Revolution is the large-scale political changes that have not yet happened. The first part of the revolution needs to be followed by the second part – full-scale reforms. Whether the Maidan events will become an actual revolution depends on us only, on whether we will be able to hold the necessary reforms.”
