TWG REVITALIZED – NEW TWG BOARD OF DIRECTORS ELECTED – Laryssa Courtney new TWG President
On November 20, 2022 a provisional TWG Board of Directors was elected. It was tasked to revitalize TWG and prepare a TWG Annual Meeting for February 2024 to be fully compliant with TWG by-laws. The new TWG Board of Directors consists of: Laryssa Courtney, President; George Masiuk, Vice-President; George Hnatiw, Treasurer; Tania Chomiak-Salvi, Secretary; George Masiuk, acting Membership Director; Michael Drabyk, Public Relations Director; Alexa Chopivsky, Events Director; Andrew Bihun, Immediate Past President; Laryssa Courtney and Christine Lucyk, TWG Cultural Fund Co-Directors; Adrian Karmazyn, TWG Fellowship Fund Director; Members-at-Large – Arthur Belendiuk, Orest Deychakiwsky, Natalie Korytnyk, Lydia Martinec, Rosalie Norair, Oksana Shulyar.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Coming soon – TWG Summer 2024 Ukrainian Embassy Internship Winner
RECENT PAST EVENTS
April 20, 2024 Nobel Laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk Addresses TWG Luncheon
On April 20, 2024, The Washington Group organized a luncheon for Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk at the historic DACOR Bacon House, a private club for foreign affairs professionals located near the White House.
TWG president Laryssa Courtney welcomed the audience to the organization’s 40th Anniversary Distinguished Speakers Luncheon and thanked Ms. Matviichuk for taking time to share information about the important work of her organization. Just forty years old, she heads up the Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, the first Nobel Prize bestowed upon a Ukrainian individual or organization since Ukraine’s independence in 1991.
In her introduction of Ms. Matviichuk, TWG Events Director Alexa Chopivsky mentioned the Center’s many activities aimed at protecting human rights and promoting democracy in Ukraine and the OSCE region. Since the beginning of Russian aggression in Ukraine in 2014, these activities have included monitoring political persecution in occupied Crimea, documenting war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Donbas and conducting the #LetMyPeopleGo and #SaveOlegSentsov international campaigns to release political prisoners detained by Russian authorities.
After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression in February 2022, Ms. Matviichuk together with other partners created the “Tribunal for Putin” initiative to document crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. She authored numerous reports to the UN, the Council of Europe, the European Union, the OSCE and the International Criminal Court. Ms. Matviichuk received many honors and awards, including a fellowship in the Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford University. In 2022, the Financial Times recognized her as one of the 25 most influential women in the world.
In her inspiring remarks, Ms. Matviichuk described the wide-ranging human rights abuses integral to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She made a compelling case for why the international community should uphold the rule of law.
Among the human rights abuses Ms. Matviichuk cited: deliberate shelling of civilian infrastructure including schools and hospitals; taking children to Russia and imposing a Russian identity on them; and killing, torturing, and raping civilians. The Center seeks to document all Russian war crimes even in the smallest of settlements. Sixty thousand cases have already been documented.
Ms. Matviichuk said the international order based on rule of law was collapsing. There was a conflict at the civilizational level between democracy and autocracy. The war was not only between Russia and Ukraine. China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria were helping Russia. Democracies needed to cooperate.
The consequence of the breakdown of a rules-based order will be the massive rearmament of the world’s nations. Resources that should be spent to improve the standard of living will be diverted to the military.
If we wanted to prevent future war crimes, she said, the perpetrators must be punished. Historically, war criminals were punished only after a war ended. “We should not wait that long. We need to establish a tribunal for war crimes right now.”
Ms. Matviichuk addressed misguided calls for peace at the expense of justice and of Ukrainian territory. This would only encourage the commission of crimes with impunity. She finished by asserting that Ukrainians would never agree to Russian subjugation.
During the Q and A, TWG Board Member Orest Deychakiwsky, who spent many years with the U.S. Helsinki Commission covering Belarus and Ukraine, highlighted the plight of Nobel Prize co-recipient Belarusian human rights activist Ales Bialiatski. Ms. Matviichuk decried his continuing imprisonment by dictator Alexander Lukashenka. She noted that many Belarusians recognize the linkage between Belarus’ freedom and Ukraine’s freedom, including the opposition volunteer Kalinouski brigade actively fighting on Ukraine’s side.
Editorial Notes: A version of this article was published in the 04/27 edition of The Ukrainian Weekly. A well documented example of Russian atrocities is the massacre in Bucha.
Summer 2003: TWG Summer Interns at the Embassy of Ukraine Comment on Their Experience
Two university students who participated in summer internships at the Embassy of Ukraine with financial support from The Washington Group have sent letters of appreciation to TWG expressing thanks for “the opportunity to work closely with Ukrainian diplomats and gain more insight into Ukrainian-American relations and international affairs more generally.” They referred to the internship as “a meaningful experience” especially because they “plan to pursue a diplomatic career path and work for the bright future of Ukraine.”
The aspiring diplomats who served as TWG-sponsored interns are Karolina Naidon, a student at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and Mariana Piontkovska, a student at Georgetown University.
In her correspondence Mariana, who is a native of Kyiv, added: “This internship helped me realize the various ways in which I could dedicate my professional career in international relations to advocating for Ukraine. It was truly amazing to have the opportunity to work with diverse professionals united with one purpose of fostering cooperation and friendly relations between Ukraine and the United States.” Karolina, whose home town is the city of Dnipro wrote:“My summer internship at the Embassy of Ukraine in the USA truly gave me an opportunity to understand international affairs in action outside of my college curriculum. Close work with diplomats helped me to see the hard work of Ukrainian embassies in representing Ukraine on the international arena and gaining such valuable support from foreign states to combat the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. I am genuinely thankful for such an opportunity to work closely with diplomats that highly influenced me to continue to pursue a diplomatic career and, in the future, contribute to the worthy representation of Ukraine in the global political arena.”
Ms. Naidon and Ms. Piontkovska served as summer interns at the embassy for eight weeks under the supervision of First Secretary Kateryna Smagliy. TWG provided stipends to each of the interns in the amount of $3000 to help cover their living expenses for the duration of the project. A dozen candidates applied for the internship. TWG Fellowship Committee members Natalie Korytnyk Forrester, Orest Deychakiwsky and Adrian Karmazyn reviewed the applications and participated in the selection process. The Embassy made the final decision from among the leading candidates.
June 26, 2023. Sacred Land: Music and Poems of Resilience from Ukraine performed by Ensemble Cherubim. The choral benefit concert for Ukraine, in the beautiful and sparkling mosaic filled sanctuary of the Saint John Paul II National Shrine, was a great success. It was well-attended and featured an ensemble of twenty professional singers, Ensemble Cherubim, who sang in Ukrainian, but, with just one exception, were not of Ukrainian heritage. English translations were provided. The format of this concert was unique, combining beautiful singing in Ukrainian with movement, acting, and powerful poetry recited in English. It highlighted the past in Ukraine, as well as the present circumstances amid war. By weaving together all the different elements, the expressive and talented conductor and music director, Marika Kuzma, an actor in her own right, choreographed this fluidity and created a very engaging kind of musical theatre. Proceeds from the concert went to United Help Ukraine. Concert Program. Concert Flyer. VIEW COMPLETE CONCERT. Photos from this concert are part of the slideshow “TWG Professional Events” in the Archive below.
March 16, 2023. This Ukrainian American Life performed by contralto Vira Slywotzky and composer pianist Dina Pruzhansky. Proceeds from the Concert went to Razom for Ukraine. Concert Review. Concert Flyer and Program.