In Ukraine, daily life is dominated by certainties and uncertainties
Photo above: Kido Koenig (FMS) speaking at SD Platform event in Kyiv (July 2024) Earlier this month, the Max van der Stoel Foundation visited Ukraine, in cooperation with other political parties and foundations from Europe. The five-day visit was dedicated to visiting political actors and exploring social [...]
The fate of dissident Mikhail Krieger
Mikhail Krieger during an interrogation (Source: Antonina Favorskaya / Sota / Moscow Times) A Russian-Ukrainian anti-war activist recounts his life behind bars in his correspondence. For two posts on social media, he was sentenced to seven years in a penal camp. Miсhail Krieger was born in 1960 in Dniepropetrovsk - now Dnipro - in Ukraine's Soviet republic. [...]
24 February: Together in action for Ukraine
Last Saturday, 24 February, hundreds of people gathered on Dam Square in Amsterdam to express their support for Ukraine, two years after the large-scale Russian invasion. As in other cities in the Netherlands, people gathered in large numbers - despite the rain - to show that we support Ukraine [...]
Stalemate Ukraine highlights undiminished importance of support
Photo: Demonstration in support of Ukraine in February 2022 - Wikimedia Commons Almost two years ago, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. With support for Ukraine no longer a foregone conclusion, a good outcome of the war is increasingly uncertain. The fighting lingers on and the risk of another frozen conflict lies [...]
Frozen Russian assets: where are they and what should be done with them?
Ever since the first months of the war in Ukraine, many, including Ukrainian authorities, have advocated the use of frozen Russian assets for Ukraine's reconstruction. In practice, however, this wish has been hard to realise, including in the Netherlands. Indeed, freezing Russian assets is anything but smooth, and deploying [...]
Solidarity with Ukraine remains essential
Photo: Destroyed city centre of Kharkiv, Ukraine, March 2022 - Pavel Dorogoj Today, the Max van der Stoel Foundation, in cooperation with Libereco and PvdA International, is organising a political café on the theme 'Solidarity with Ukraine', for which you can register here. During the event, the situation Ukraine will be discussed in two panels. In [...]
Come too! Political Café: Solidarity with Ukraine
Register here: https://forms.gle/zDAJonTXkdhSF5F76 Just under three hours' flight from the Netherlands, a particularly brutal war - the Russian invasion of Ukraine - is still raging, but after a year and a half of war, support for the Ukrainian struggle is still widely felt in the Netherlands. From several countries in the west, the pressure for support for [...]
'Progressive Leadership & Just Recovery' training with SD Platform Ukraine
Last weekend, from 7 to 9 July, FMS, together with the SD Platform in Ukraine, organised a three-day training on "Progressive Leadership & Just Recovery" in Kyiv. The SD Platform in Ukraine has been working for years from the bottom up to promote fair, social politics for all - including in times of war. These trainings are [...]
New European publication on the way forward in Ukraine
Russia's aggression against Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world and brought great devastation and trauma. The war continues in 2023, characterised by an unruly Ukraine, fighting courageously and energetically for its sovereignty, rule of law and self-determination. Western forces, with the European Union at the forefront, play an important role in [...]
Ukrainian aid organisation Vostok SOS's visit to The Hague
Last week, representatives of Ukrainian aid organisation Vostok SOS were in the Netherlands to draw attention to the important work they are doing in Ukraine. Besides the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others, FMS also had the honour of hosting the representatives. In addition, FMS together with the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and Libereco organised [...]