Since the beginning of Russian war against Ukraine back in 2014 (when Ukrainian civil society. played a significant if not essential role in satisfying the urgent needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine) and after the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February 2022 the Ukrainian civil society proved to be self-organized, resilient and efficient. Unprecedented mobilization across the country defending lives, dignity, rights of all citizens and territorial integrity of Ukraine accompanied with the tightening of existing horizontal networks have become a model of national resilience and it is internationally recognized. Adaptivity of the Ukrainian society to respond to current challenges alongside with flexibility of numerous donor institutions, opened opportunities to overcome and transform these challenges, as well as strengthened social cohesion in the country.

The role of civil society is also important from the perspective of European integration of Ukraine. After the decision of the European Union to grant Ukraine and Moldova the candidate status the need for the expert community expertise, the advocating of the reforms and monitoring of the implementation of the home-tasks assigned by the European Commission is crucial.

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