Kyiv Seminars for Senior UA MOD/JNSDC/MVD Officials

VIII. CUSUR & ‘Kyiv Seminars for Senior UA MOD/NSDC/MVD Officials’ (2026 Update)

The several visits of young, fresh minded, reform oriented UA military commanders and national security analysts to various top flight foreign policy think tanks and institutes of higher diplomatic or military learning in DC in the latter part of 2014 (prompted in good part by CUSUR invitations to its Occasional Briefings) inspired the UA National Security & Defense Council to propose a slightly different arrangement for similar discussions/conversations in 2015.

CUSUR was asked to see if key members of its US-UA Working Group might not be interested in spending a week of their time engaged in discussions in Kyiv ‘devoted to the art of strategic & tactical planning in the face of a new form of warfare not yet understood by the most able students of military science’. A number of the Center’s partner organizations were approached as well.

The response by all parties involved was in the affirmative. And a plan was hatched with the understanding that matters needed to be expedited sooner rather than later. CUSUR (and its closest partner, the AFPC) helped to organize at least four visits to Ukraine on the matter (2015, 2016, 2017, 2021). The last, which included representatives from a number of the finest think tanks in DC: American Foreign Policy Council; Jamestown Foundation; Hudson Institute and the Potomac Foundation proved extremely fruitful and confirmed that all parties were ready for a more formal ‘followup’ arrangement—a set of ‘lectures/colloquia’ conducted in Kyiv for Ukraine’s top level ‘security’ personnel.

CUSUR (after studying several venues) settled on a venue for the stated project: the Kyiv Mohyla Academy National University. Additionally, several dozen senior UA NSDC and MOD officials were interviewed to participate in the projected lecture series; equally, several of the finest students of ‘the contemporary art of war’ hailing from the US, Canada and EU were asked to partake in the process as instructors. The pandemic slowed the process in the latter half of 2020 and throughout 2021 and the RU-UA war put a full stop to the effort in 2022-2025, but the Center is convinced that work in the area can recommence in spring 2026. AFPC and Potomac Foundation have already broached the matter with CUSUR and thoughts on the best way to proceed (in lieu of the continuing issues with the war) have been exchanged. Ms. Chrystina Balko, earlier appointed and tasked to find a premise that would serve as a Kyiv CUSUR office and conference space, has reopened discussions over a space (found in January 2022) on Kyiv’s “Embassy Row” that fits all CUSUR’s needs.