Ukrainian Studies Seminar Series

Time: 26 March 2026, 15.00-17.00

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has done more than alter the balance of power in Europe. It has produced new actors, new hierarchies, and new forms of political subjectivity. The war is fundamentally changing not only Ukraine’s international position but the terms on which the EU, the US, and Europe’s smaller states understand and exercise their agency in security affairs.

This seminar looks at how war reconstitutes international agency and how the experience of war transforms the very terms on which states act, are recognized, and relate to one another. Three presentations explore this question from different angles: the theoretical and structural dimensions of war’s constitutive effects on agency, the changing agency of small states in security crises, and the reflection of reconfiguration of international system.

We welcome researchers from the University of Helsinki and other institutions to participate in the seminar either online or in person.

Join us for a seminar led by Dr. Yuliia Kurnyshova (Aleksanteri Institute), who will be joined by Professor Andrey Makarychev (University of Tartu) and Associate Professor Matti Puranen (National Defence University of Finland).

Questions for discussion:

• How does war constitute international agency?
• What structural asymmetries shape the relationship between Ukraine's agency and its partners' commitments?
• How do hierarchical relationships between partners shape and constrain the agency that war produces?

Time: 7 May 2026, 15.15-17.00

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has transformed social identities, reinforced the role and agency of religious denominations in the public sphere, as well as in the military (military chaplains). The developments have demonstrated that religious sensitivities concerning cultural heritage, divisions of Orthodoxy and other denominations, proselytism, divisions between distinct parts of Ukraine (East vs. West) and other denominators strike as conspicuous factor in social life and public debates both in Ukraine and among war refugees throughout Europe and Finland.

This seminar aims to reflect on how religious sensitivities interact with political processes under martial law, including near coming elections in the war-ridden Ukrainian society as well as in wider international dialogue, and how questions of collective memory and in-depth trauma intersect with social cohesion and peace-building efforts.

We will hear two presentations: Dr. Vitalii Lebediuk will present on "The religious issue in the discourse of Ukraine’s political parties under martial law" and MA Dmytro Fedorchak on "Religion in Wartime Ukraine: Navigating Between Public Role and Prophetic Voice". The presentations are followed by a panel and Q&A session.

Elina Kahla is a senior scholar at the Aleksanteri Institute. Her research interests include politics of memory, study of Gulag and religious persecutions, religions as cultural memory. More recently, she is interested in cultural memory and impact of religious agency in Ukraine. Her full profile .

Vitalii Lebediuk is an Associate Professor at the Department of National Security and Political Science and the Director of the School for Political Analysis “POLIS” at the National University of Ostroh Academy (Ukraine). His research interests include democratization, political parties and party systems, election systems and voting behavior in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. He was a fellow at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, the George Washington University, the University of Michigan, and the academic coordinator of several Erasmus+ projects.

Dmytro Fedorchak: MA in Theology (ongoing), Sankt Ignatios College (Stockholm, Sweden); MA in Nonprofit Management, Ukrainian Catholic University (Lviv); Facilitator, researcher at NGO “” (Ukraine). Works at the intersection of religion, state, and civil society on collective memory, trauma, and social cohesion in wartime contexts. Field experience across Ukraine, including frontline and de-occupied regions, facilitating dialogue, supporting communities, and conducting qualitative research with religious leaders and civil society actors. Engaged in developing educational programs on religious coping, MHPSS, and peacebuilding for faith-based and community leaders. His research interests include theology of memory, public ecclesiology, collective trauma and reconciliation, church inclusion, and veterans’ reintegration.