WASHINGTON – The U.S.-Ukraine Foundation (USUF) on April 24 hosted an online streaming event featuring the film “The Russian Woodpecker.” The panelists for the webinar were Chad Gracia (the film’s author, producer and director), Nadia K. McConnell (president of the U.S.-Ukraine Foundation), Ambassador John Herbst (director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia’s Center), and Kateryna Pavlova (head of the Department for International and Public Relations at the State Agency of Ukraine for Management of the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone).
They discussed the significance and relevance of the film vis-à-vis today’s realities, including the Soviet government’s reaction to the Chornobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 and the consequences Ukrainians and people all over the world faced as a result of the tragedy. They also drew parallels between the lack of transparency on the part of the Soviet government regarding the Chornobyl catastrophe and the situation with the Coronavirus pandemic that is taking so many lives today.