Vadim Granovskiy is a well known Ukrainian coffee entrepreneur and the founder of Coffee in Action. His charity fund supports the Armed Forces of Ukraine through the Coffee Care project which supplies high quality coffee and brewing equipment to Ukrainian soldiers. Vadim talks about how he became a world renowned coffee entrepreneur and why he transformed his Kyiv Podil cafe into a major effort to help make the lives of Ukrainian soldiers a little more tolerable while serving on active duty in the war with Russia. www.coffeeinaction.com/
Author: Mike Buryk
Since the Russo-Ukrainian war began in February 2022, the Ukrainian agricultural sector has faced many very difficult challenges in its effort to keep operating as a major player in the global economy. Alex Lissitsa is an agribusiness expert, a Presidium member with the Ukrainian Agribusiness Club and CEO of the Warsaw-listed agricultural company IMC. He reviews what has happened with Ukrainian agriculture this year and talks about the current situation with the export of its agricultural products. www.linkedin.com/in/alex-lissitsa
In 2016 journalist and writer Bohdan Logvynenko created Ukraїner as a volunteer media project. Through in-depth research called “expeditions”, the multimedia platform aims to create an understanding of who Ukrainians are and to put the findings in an easily accessible mass media format online. Yuliia Tymoshenko, editor-in-chief of the English language edition of Ukraїner, talks about its content and how the media platform has taken a new direction with the war in Ukraine. ukrainer.net/en/
Ukraine has experienced repeated attacks on its energy infrastructure by Russian missiles and drones. Andrian Prokip, an energy analyst with the Wilson Center’s Kennan Institute, talks about the October 2022 attacks and what needs to be done to repair the damage. He also reviews what steps must be taken to prevent future attacks. www.wilsoncenter.org/person/andrian-prokip
Marina Sorina, a Ukrainian emigre from Kharkiv, Ukraine, arrived in Verona, Italy in 1995. She is a tour guide and and an active volunteer member of “Malve di Ucraina” cultural association. Marina talks about the development of the Ukrainian community in Italy at the end of the 20th century and reviews the current situation for Ukrainian war refugees. She had an unsuccessful bid in September 2022 for a seat in the Italian Parliament with the Più Europa party. www.facebook.com/MarinaSorinaVr www.facebook.com/malvediucrainaverona
The career of Ukrainian Canadian Michael Bociurkiw as a global affairs analyst, speaker and journalist in both print and live media spans several decades. Early in his career, he covered the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster as a correspondent for The Ukrainian Weekly. Michael is a a frequent commentator on BBC World Television, BBC World Service Radio, CNN, Bloomberg TV, CTV, CBC and Al Jazeera. He is a senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council, attached to its Eurasia Center. In this interview, Michael talks about his impressive and varied career in the media and his personal involvement and keen…
October 14, 2022 marks the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska Povstanska Armiia, “UPA”) in Western Ukraine. From 1942 to 1954 this group of young Ukrainian partisans fought against Germany, the Soviet Union and Poland for Ukrainian independence. Christina Kotlar, the daughter of Julian “Levko” Kotlar, talks about her father’s activity in UPA from 1944-1947 and his life-long effort working with UPA veterans and helping to chronicle their valiant struggle during World War II and afterwards. She also touches on the current situation with Ukrainian partisans in the south of Ukraine during the Russian occupation.…
Yurii Kovryzhenko is a Ukrainian chef and cofounder of the London neo bistro Mriya (the Dream). He talks about his vision for this new restaurant and how it should become a very special Ukrainian cultural gathering place in the UK. The restaurant was opened on August 31, 2022. In an effort to help these newcomers in London, Mriya is staffed solely by Ukrainian refugees. www.facebook.com/mriyaneobistro
Urban Space Radio was started by the NGO Teple Misto (“Warm City”) in the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk in 2015. Initially the media platform only offered popular music produced by Ukrainian musicians, but added podcasts in 2018. CEO Nadiia Hulchuk talks about the history of the media platform and its efforts to bring together, inform and entertain Ukrainians around the country and abroad. urbanspaceradio.com
Volodymyr Yermolenko is a Ukrainian philosopher, editor-in-chief of UkraineWorld, director of analytics at Internews Ukraine and host of the “Explaining Ukraine” podcast. In this interview, he explores Ukraine’s national identity and how it was shaped. He also looks at Putin’s views about Ukraine and why he thinks a diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine is almost impossible at this point. ukraineworld.org
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, it is estimated that nearly 12.8 million people have been displaced. About 7.7 million people are internally displaced within Ukraine and in need of housing. Slava Balbek, the founder and CEO of the architectural firm Balbek Bureau, and John Shmorhun, the Chairman of the NGO MoveUkraine, discuss their respective plans to provide housing for Ukraine’s internally displaced people. www.balbek.com www.moveukraine.org
Jaroslaw (Slavko) Martyniuk is a retired energy economist and sociologist. He was born in Ukraine at the start of World War II. His family made a narrow escape from Communism and settled in Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany. Eventually, the family emigrated to Chicago in the U.S. Some members of his extended family who remained in Ukraine ended up in the Gulag in the Soviet Union. Martyniuk worked for Amoco Oil in Chicago, and in 1979, his oil industry experience led him to a diplomatic post with the International Energy Agency in Paris. In the mid-eighties, in a career switch, he joined…