The Russian war against Ukraine has become another wake-up call for the West. The taboos on criticizing Russia are being gradually lifted bearing in mind demonstration of total disrespect to any rules by Moscow. Stigmatization of the critics of Russia as Russophobes is not trendy anymore although Russia does its best to return to “good old times” when pro-Russian narratives were dominating. Such situation opens a window of opportunity for rethinking and better understanding of Russian intentions, strategies and tactics and the place of other countries and regions in these strategies as well as reshaping of attitude towards threats coming from Russia. Also, the situation has increased interest to Ukrainian experience and expertise since the patterns Russia is applying in Ukraine may serve as a lesson for the neighboring countries endangered by Russia as well as for a wider international community.

Yaroslav Matiychyk Policy Brief

Yaroslav Matiychyk is the Executive Director at Strategic and Security Studies Group (Kyiv, Ukraine). Previously Mr. Matiychyk was working as a Head of Foreign Policy Strategy Department at the National Institute for Strategic Studies, Senior Fellow at the Institute of National Security and Chief of Monitoring Unit at the National Institute for International Security Problems. He graduated from the Academy of State Governance under the President of Ukraine and also is an alumnus of the George C. Marshall European Center For Security Studies, Szeged Security Policy Center, Swiss Institute of Information Technologies. The key research interests of Mr. Matiychyk are national and international security studies, foreign policy of Ukraine, national security policy of Ukraine.

This policy brief is developed within the project “Romanian – Ukrainian Civil Society Forum for Dialogue and Cooperation. Third edition”, implemented by the Experts for Security and Global Affairs Association, Romania, in partnership with Strategic and Security Studies Group and Foreign Policy Council “Ukrainian PRISM”, Ukraine, with the support of Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, a project of the German Marshall Fund. The views expressed in this policy paper are those of the author and do not necessarily coincide with those of ESGA partners