Over the last eight years, negotiations through the Trilateral Contact Group (OSCE, Ukraine, Russia) and Normandy Format (Germany, France, Ukraine, Russia) to end the war in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine have failed to achieve a peace agreement. The Russian-Ukrainian war has created two million internally displaced persons and refugees, killed over 15,000 combatants and civilians, and brought widespread destruction to the infrastructure and economy of the Donbas. There is little likelihood of achieving a peace settlement if the Trilateral Contact Group and Normandy Format remain in their current format.

A new report by the Henry Jackson Society argues that the Kremlin has moved to a military threat posture after failing to achieve its goals of a weak, federal state (“Bosnianisation”), ending its goals of seeking NATO and EU membership (“Finlandisation”) and Ukraine returned to Russia’s sphere of influence. This new paper argues the West should take the initiative and reform and revive the diplomatic process by moving the Trilateral Contact Group from Minsk to Switzerland and expanding the Normandy Format by adding the US and UK as additional members.

The Henry Jackson Society is delighted to invite you to a discussion of a new report “Ending Russia’s War Against Ukraine” by its author Dr Taras Kuzio (Henry Jackson Society), Ms Iuliia Osmolovska (Eastern Europe Security institute) and Dr Hanna Shelest (Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”).

Taras Kuzio is a Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and Professor in the Department of Political Science, National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy. His previous positions were at the University of Alberta, George Washington University, and University of Toronto, International Institute of Strategic Studies, and School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Taras Kuzio holds a PhD in political science from the University of Birmingham, England, an MA in Area Studies (USSR, Eastern Europe) from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, and a BA in Economics from the School of European Studies, University of Sussex. He held a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Yale University. Taras Kuzio is the author and editor of 22 books, 38 book chapters and over 130 scholarly articles on Soviet, Eurasian, Russian, and Ukrainian politics, colour revolutions, nationalism, geopolitics, and international relations.

A career diplomat with 20 years of working in and for the governmental structures in Ukraine, Iuliia Osmolovska has spent most of her professional time dealing with issues of security and defense at European level and contributed with a range of strategic initiatives of Ukraine’s cooperation with the EU as a whole and the UK in particular.

From 1999 to 2011 she worked on security and defence dialogue between Ukraine and the EU at the EU Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, where she held positions from a diplomatic attaché to a councillor. Iuliia chaired the work of the strategy planning unit of the EU Department and was a team leader on Ukraine-EU strategic initiatives. She was a member of the Secretariat of the Delegation of Ukraine for negotiations with the EU on Association Agreement and coordinated the work of the Ukrainian part of the WG1 (political dialogue, defence and security) on drafting the Ukraine-EU Association Agreement.

Her diplomatic experience also includes two diplomatic postings at the Embassy of Ukraine in the UK, taking positions of second secretary, councillor, head of the political section and acting deputy head of mission in 2001-2004 and 2009-2011.

In 2011-2014 Iuliia served as coordinator on International Integration and Cooperation at the Economic Reforms Coordination Center. In 2014 she co-chaired the Reforms’ Support Center for the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine (a communicative platform for a dialogue between the Government of Ukraine and expert community and civil society) and in 2015 obtained an experience as Executive Director at the Ukrainian Investment and Trade Facilitation Center.

From 2014 to 2018 Iuliia was a Managing Partner at the Institute for Negotiation Skills (Ukraine) and worked as an advisor on cooperation with NATO member-states to the Director General of SC “Ukrspecexport” in 2016-2019.

In May 2018 she founded and still acts as Executive Director of the Art of Business and Diplomacy Group, which focuses on consultancy and training in negotiations.

Iuliia holds Master of Philosophy in European Studies from the University of Cambridge (the United Kingdom), Master of Foreign Policy from the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine/the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and Master of International Business Management from Kyiv National Economic University (diploma with honor). She completed the Management and Leadership Program at the JFKennedy School of Administration (Harvard University, USA) in 2011 and was trained at administrative structures of the EU (EU VIP-exchange Program) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany. In 2013 she took a course on Psychology and Mediation of Negotiations at St-Petersburg State University (Russian Federation), but had to disrupt her studies because of the annexation of Crimea and events in Eastern Ukraine.

Iuliia was awarded with the Honorary Decoration of the Chief of General Staff-Chief Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine “For Merit to the Armed Forces of Ukraine” and a commemorative medal for the Royal Air Squadron visit to Ukraine (2013).

Hanna Shelest is Director of the Security Programme at the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism”. Prior to this, she had served for more than 10 years as a Senior Researcher at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Odessa Branch. In 2014 Dr Shelest served as a Visiting Research Fellow at the NATO Defence College in Rome. Previously she had experience in PR and lobbying for government and business, as well as teaching at Odessa National University.

Sam Ashworth-Hayes is the Director of Studies at the Henry Jackson Society. Prior to joining HJS, Sam co-founded a startup using satellite imagery to support the installation of urban green infrastructure, raised funding and built a team to develop prototype products and deliver the first commercial trials. He has also previously worked designing field and lab experiments in behavioural economics, and as a journalist and researcher. Outside of academia Sam writes regularly for outlets including The Spectator, CapX, and National Review on economics and politics, and has made media appearances for the BBC, GB News, and Times Radio. He holds an MPhil in Economics from the University of Oxford, and a Bachelors in the same from the University of York.

***

SUMMARY

On the 26^th of January 2022, Sam Ashworth-Hayes, the Director of studies at the Henry Jackson Society, Iuliia Osmolovska, founder and Executive Director of Art of Business and Diplomacy Group, Hanna Shelest, Director of the Security Programme at Ukrainian Prism, and Dr Taras Kuzio, Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, discussed Dr Kuzio new report “Ending Russia’s War Against Ukraine” and the need to reform the current diplomatic process for managing the conflict.

Sam Ashworth began the discussion by introducing the panellists and the topic of discussion. Hanna Shelest then gave an overview of the failures of the Normandy Format and Minsk Process and how the Russian Government has sought to sabotage it. Additionally, she mentioned that the Russian’s are trying to emulate their previous strategies of invasion in Georgia and Moldova in Ukraine. Dr Kuzio then discussed his paper, highlighting that the conflict was manufactured out of artificial outrages by the Russian government. He also set out a series of proposals that could be used to revitalise and strengthen diplomatic efforts to end the conflict. Finally, Iuliia Osmolovska gave some reflections on the paper based on her experience as a veteran diplomat and that currently the Ukrainians have very little power in the current Normandy format. She also argued that the conflict is not yet ripe for resolution.

The discussion then closed with questions from the audience. These question covered the possibility of attempts to replace President Zelensky with a Pro-Russian loyalist, how long the Russians can maintain this aggressive posture and how to persuade Germany to become more sceptical of Russia.