Russian's Invasion of Ukraine: Lessons after a Year of War

Penn REES presents a conversation with Yevhen Fedchenko and Tomasz Grzywaczewski.

Yevhen Fedchenko, Ph.D is co-founder and Chief Editor of fact-checking website StopFake.org, leading hub of expertise on Russian disinformation. He is also Director of the Mohyla School of Journalism at National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine. He is advising on issues of tackling disinformation and media literacy, is an active commentator of Ukrainian politics and speaker at numerous high-level international conferences.

Yevhen spent more than 25 years with media industry, covering international stories for different types of media and leading Foreign news desk at one of main Ukrainian TV channels.

After moving to academia, he was teaching International Relations, was a co-founder of Digital Future of Journalism program for journalists and Digital Media for Universities Internet journalism curriculum development program. Now he teaches courses on International news.

His main interests are information wars, propaganda and weaponization of information, coverage of international politics in media and public diplomacy, digital journalism and innovations, journalism education in transitional societies, news standards. He contributed his comments to the NYT, RFE/RL, BBC, NPR, WNYC, Politico, Public Radio International, Radio Canada International, CBC, Mashable, SKY etc.

In 2006 – 2007 Fedchenko was co-director of Ohio University / Kyiv-Mohyla Academy Linkage Program (US Department of State project), in Fall 2005 and Spring 2007 he was Visiting professor at Ohio University (Athens, OH, USA). In 2010-2011 Yevhen Fedchenko was Fulbright visiting professor at USC Annenberg(Los Angeles, USA).

Tomasz Grzywaczewski (https://www.facebook.com/tomasz.grzywaczewski.9/) is a war journalist, documentary filmmaker, and author of non-fiction books focusing on Central and Eastern Europe. He has spent the last 12 months reporting from the frontlines in Ukraine as a correspondent for the Chief Evening News Service on the first channel of Polish Public TV. Tomasz has collaborated with various media outlets, including CBS News and Foreign Policy. The most recent of his documentaries, "Erase the Nation", has been screened in various international forums, including OSCE, and UNESCO, as well as in several cities around the globe eg. Stockholm, New York, and Kuala Lumpur. He is the author of 4 books including "The Borders of Dreams" dedicated to post-soviet unrecognized states. Tomasz is also an expert on transatlantic relationships and collaborates with think tanks and research institutes.