Four years have passed since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and despite determined efforts – including unprecedented sanctions against the Kremlin – the war continues. How robust has the UK’s support for Ukraine been, and how has it evolved following the dramatic political shift that saw Labour defeat the Conservatives in a landslide? How do British citizens now feel about sustaining support for Ukraine?

Were strategic mistakes made, particularly given that sanctions have not been powerful enough to halt Putin’s aggression? And, crucially, what lies ahead? Will the British public continue to back Ukraine as strongly as before, or is sentiment beginning to shift? These are some of the central questions our panel will explore.

Tetyana Nesterchuk 

Tetyana Nesterchuk is a barrister at Fountain Court chambers, a non-resident  Legal Fellow at Kyiv School of Economics Institute, and a trustee of the Ukrainian Institute London. She works on projects dealing with compensation of victims of the war and reconstruction of Ukraine.

Lord Charlie Banner

Lord Charlie Banner is a King’s Counsel at Keating Chambers, a working peer in the House of Lords and a Senior Fellow at Onward. He regularly speaks and writes on defence and foreign policy matters.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG KC 

Sir Malcolm Rifkind KCMG KC was born in Edinburgh in 1946. He was educated at George Watson’s College and Edinburgh University where he studied law before taking a postgraduate degree in political science.

In 1979, Margaret Thatcher appointed him a Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, at first in the Scottish Office and then, to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, being promoted to Minister of State in 1983. He became a member of the Cabinet in 1986 as Secretary of State for Scotland. In 1990 he became Secretary of State for Transport and in 1992 Secretary of State for Defence. From 1995-97 he was Foreign Secretary.

He served as a Minister in the Government for an uninterrupted period of 18 years which is a record going back to Lord Palmerston in the 19th century.

He served as the Chairman of the Intelligence and Security Committee, which provides oversight of the UK’s intelligence agencies, MI6, MI5 and GCHQ, from 2010 until 2015. He is a Visiting Professor at the Dept of war Studies at King’s College, London and is a Distinguished Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

Samuel Ramani 

Samuel Ramani  is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) think tank in London and the CEO of Pangea Geopolitical Risk. Before joining RUSI and establishing PGR, Samuel received his DPhil in International Relations at St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford in 2021. Samuel is the author of Russia in Africa: Resurgent Great Power or Bellicose Pretender and Putin’s War on Ukraine: Russia’s Campaign for Global Counter-Revolution, which were published by Oxford University Press and Hurst in 2023. Samuel frequently advises the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, US Department of State, US Department of Defence, and NATO on defense and security issues, and is a regular contributor to the BBC World Service, Al Jazeera, CNN International, and Foreign Policy magazine.

Dr Helena Ivanov

Dr Helena Ivanov is an Associate Research Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. She recently completed a PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research focuses on the relationship between propaganda and violence against civilians. In her thesis, Helena examined the role propaganda played during the Yugoslav Wars and produced a model for studying propaganda which details the key phases, functions, discourses, and techniques of propaganda (the model itself is applicable to other contexts). Additionally, Helena also served as a Manager at the Centre for International Studies at the LSE.

Prior to her PhD, Helena completed an MPhil in Political Theory at the University of Oxford, and holds a BA in Politics from the University of Belgrade.

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