Aspen meeting “Communication of Ukraine with the world: How to defeat the “Ukraine fatigue” discourse and promote the Ukrainian agenda.”

On November 18, testing a new impact format, the Aspen Institute Kyiv held an Aspen Lab on “Ukraine & World Communications: how to defeat the “Ukraine Fatigue” discourse and promote the Ukrainian agenda.” 

The format included dialogue sessions based on texts and group work to strategize how to deconstruct the prejudices about Ukraine on the world stage. 

The event united the Aspen Institute’s Kyiv Community members — media managers, politicians, journalists, cultural representatives, and experts working to promote Ukraine’s global agenda. 

During the event, the participants discussed overcoming information challenges, keeping Ukraine’s issue on the top of the global agenda, effective mechanisms of communication with confederates, overcoming the prejudices of the “global South,” and ways to build and implement a strategy for developing Ukrainian discourse.

The participants analyzed Ukraine’s communication achievements during martial law, problematic approaches and thematic areas that require a particular communication policy, and the tendency to change narratives about Ukraine at the beginning of the full-scale invasion and now.

As a result, the participants discussed the need for a one-voice policy in the international arena, Ukraine’s branding, and strengthening the institutional capacity to build and implement long-term strategies within the state at all levels.

During the group work, the participants developed communication models to overcome the most widespread negative prejudices about Ukraine and suggested what to emphasize in communications with allies.

Andriy Kulakov, Program Coordinator of the Aspen Institute Kyiv Community, program director at Internews-Ukraine, and Viacheslav Rudnytskyi, CEO at Savvy, moderated the discussion, and Alina Shklyaruk, Seminar Program Director at the Aspen Institute Kyiv Community, coordinated the event.

We hope that presented thoughts and new ideas will become a base of future Ukrainian agenda’s promotion abroad.