The new season of Vienna Coffee House Conversations opens with Ivan Vejvoda speaking with Hanna Shelest, foreign affairs and security policy expert from Ukraine, for an inside perspective on the Russo-Ukrainian war. As Europe debates how to support Ukraine and potentially extend EU membership, Hanna provides insights from the ground on the current state of the conflict. She discusses the resilience and sacrifices of the Ukrainian people, the shifting international perceptions of the conflict, Ukraine’s progress towards meeting the EU accession criteria, and more. With her hometown of Odessa close to the frontlines, Hanna gives a personal account of how Ukrainians are persevering through turmoil and seeking normalcy despite the backdrop of war. As Europe looks for solutions to the crisis, this conversation offers an eyewitness view of the tremendous challenges Ukraine faces as well as its ambitions for greater integration with the EU.

Hanna Shelest is a renowned Ukrainian expert on security and foreign affairs. She is the Director of Security Programs at the Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian Prism” and Editor-in-chief at UA: Ukraine Analytica. With over 10 years' experience as a Senior Researcher at Ukraine’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, she has published extensively on Ukraine’s national security strategy. In 2014, she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the NATO Defense College in Rome. She has lectured at institutions including the Diplomatic Academy of Ukraine and the World Economic Forum.

Watch Hanna Shelest at our recent Europe’s Futures Colloquium here.
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Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at IWM implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of ideas addressing pivotal challenges confronting Europe and the European Union: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) is an institute of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences. Founded as a place of encounter in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria, its initial mission was to create a meeting place for dissenting thinkers of Eastern Europe and prominent scholars from the West.

Since then it has promoted intellectual exchange across disciplines, between academia and society, and among regions that now embrace the Global South and North. The IWM is an independent and non-partisan institution, and proudly so. All of our fellows, visiting and permanent, pursue their own research in an environment designed to enrich their work and to render it more accessible within and beyond academia.

you can find IWM's website at:

https://www.iwm.at/

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of ideas addressing pivotal challenges confronting Europe and the European Union: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) is an institute of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences. Founded as a place of encounter in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria, its initial mission was to create a meeting place for dissenting thinkers of Eastern Europe and prominent scholars from the West.

Since then it has promoted intellectual exchange across disciplines, between academia and society, and among regions that now embrace the Global South and North. The IWM is an independent and non-partisan institution, and proudly so. All of our fellows, visiting and permanent, pursue their own research in an environment designed to enrich their work and to render it more accessible within and beyond academia.

For further information about the Institute:

https://www.iwm.at/