The Ukrainian Review has become an informational partner of the “Bridges of Ukraine” project by the civic initiative “Holka”.
The project aims to connect Ukrainians who remain in Ukraine with those who, for various reasons, have left, to support the state during the war and after its end. Additionally, the project seeks to involve politicians, diplomats, and experts in discussions and in shaping Ukraine’s policies regarding Ukrainians abroad.
The project’s author and co-founder of the “Holka” civic initiative, Margaryta Sytnyk, worked in the EU for 7 years but returned to Ukraine in 2022. She notes:
“As a journalist, communications manager, and Ukrainian with almost 10 years of migration experience, I understand that we need to develop state policies so that millions of Ukrainians who have left not only maintain their connection with Ukraine and their identity but also become ambassadors who advocate for Ukraine’s interests globally. Russia wages war on Ukrainians wherever they are – in Ukraine or beyond its borders. This is an existential war for every Ukrainian, and our victory depends on each of us,” – says Margaryta Sytnyk.
Every Friday, on The Ukrainian Review website, with a new guest from “Bridges of Ukraine,” we will tell how each Ukrainian around the world can contribute to helping Ukraine: promoting Ukrainian culture and language internationally, countering disinformation, advocating for Ukraine’s needs at local and national levels in their host countries, and already influencing local policies.
“One of the key tasks of our media is to unite Ukrainians worldwide to counter Russian disinformation. That’s why we highly value the “Bridges of Ukraine” project and consider it our ideological partner. Together, we can double our efforts and reach out to the diaspora and the international community, who are gradually becoming fatigued by the war in Ukraine,”– said Tetiana Stelmakh, editor-in-chief of The Ukrainian Review.
Margaryta Sytnyk said:
“Millions of Ukrainians abroad can do far more than a single ambassador by becoming representatives of Ukraine’s interests. Our program’s guests share how Ukrainians can help, even if they have just half an hour a day. This means that every woman who went abroad to protect her children can become an ‘ambassador’ of Ukraine. And there are many such requests from our women who moved abroad because of the war. Every week on my Facebook page, I offer to ask a question to the next speaker of Mostiv (Bridges). The most popular is from women who have left: ‘How can I be useful if I don’t have much time, but I want to help?’.
The guests of the programme, which can be viewed on the “Holka” YouTube channel, have already become former Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin, Verkhovna Rada MP and Vice-President of the European ALDE party Yevheniya Kravchuk, head of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security Ihor Solovey, former head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance Volodymyr Viatrovych, and migration expert Doctor of Economics Andriy Haidutskyi.
Upcoming speakers include former Minister of Culture and director of the Ivan Franko Theater Yevhen Nyschuk, President of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and former Minister of Education Serhiy Kvit, Executive Director of the Association of Ukrainian Cities Oleksandr Slobozhan, and others.
Background: The prototype for the “Bridges of Ukraine” logo was the Preobrazhensky Bridge in Zaporizhzhia over the Dnipro to Khortytsia Island – the capital of Ukrainian Cossack heritage.
Host Margaryta Sytnyk is a journalist and communications manager who previously worked as a correspondent for the news program of Channel 1+1, covering Poland and Russia, as well as a parliamentary journalist for STB’s “Vikna-Novyny” program, and as a news journalist on Radio Gdansk.
Holka (Needle)
