What is Ukraine's government policy towards Belarus and Belarusians? Since February 2022, the Belarusian regime supported Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, while public opinion polls show that the Belarusian society is overwhelmingly against the country's involvement in the war. In this complex context, while Ukraine to some extent halted its contacts with Belarus' authorities after the fraudulent presidential elections of 2020, it did not cut diplomatic ties with Lukashenka's regime and economic relations between the countries were quite intensive till the beginning of the war. While official Kyiv expresses support for the democratic aspirations of the Belarusian people and acknowledges an anti-military attitude and actions of Belarusians, Ukrainian leadership has been rather reluctant to engage with the Belarusian democratic forces.

What are Belarus-Ukraine relations like today, and what are the main factors determining them? How to build connections between Ukraine and democratic Belarus? What can domestic and international actors do to help strive for an alliance between the two nations? How might the relations between the two countries evolve in the future? These and other questions will be discussed in a panel discussion organised by the Oxford Belarus Observatory, in partnership with the Research Center of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya Office, and the IGSD, University of Warwick.

The discussion will be held in an online format via ZOOM with Belarusian simultaneous translation and recorded. Please register Link opens in a new windowhere to participate and ask questions to the speakers. Also, you can follow the discussion via live streaming on TwitterLink opens in a new window and YouTubeLink opens in a new window.

 Moderator:  

Elena Korosteleva, Professor Politics and Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick, Visiting Professor at the Oxford Belarus Observatory, University of Oxford

Speakers:

Oleksiy Goncharenko, Ukrainian Parliament Member, Vice President of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons

Valery Kavaleuski, Deputy Head at the United Transitional Cabinet of Belarus; Representative on Foreign Affairs, Office of Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya

Yevhen Mahda, Director of the Institute of World Policy, Ukraine

Andrei Kazakevich, Director of the “Political Sphere” Political Studies Institute, Belarus

* Yevhen Mahda will speak Ukrainian during the webinar. If simultaneous translation from Ukrainian to English is required, please join via Zoom.