CUSUR Logo

US-Ukrainian Business Networking Series

Ukraine’s Quest for Mature Nation Statehood RT IV: Ukraine’s Transition to a Developed Market Economy saw the introduction of a new ingredient to the proceedings – a series of business-to-business networking sessions that ran parallel to the traditional symposium. The participants were so taken by the idea that the organizers were advised to turn the B2B gatherings into a unified stand-alone event.

The advice was taken and, in the immediate term, resulted in a highly successful US-UA Business Networking Forum (held March 2005 in New York City using four venues: the Ukrainian Institute of America/NYU/Columbia University and the Union League Club).

In the longer term, the episode saw the launching of a specialized US-Ukrainian business/investment conference series:

During its short tenure, the US-Ukrainian Business Networking Forum Series has hosted an authoritative set of high-level officials and corporate leaders from both Ukraine and the United States:

Ukrainian government leaders who have participated as major speakers include Prime Ministers Viktor Yuri Yekhanurov and Viktor Yanukovych; Ukrainian Industry Minister Volodymyr Shandra; Ukrainian Minister of Justice Roman Zwarych; Ukrainian Economy Ministers Volodymyr Makukha, Bohdan Danylyshyn and Petro Poroshenko; Energy Ministers Ivan Plachkov and Yuri Boyko, and head of the Joint Stock Company the State Export-Import Bank of Ukraine Viktor Kapustin; Ambassadors Oleh Shamshur, Oleksandr Mostyk and Yuri Sergeyev.

US government leaders who have participated as major speakers include: Assistant Trade Representative Catherine Novelli, Assistant Secretary for Commerce Al Frink, Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Nancy Lee, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Matt Bryza, Ambassador John Herbst, Representatives Sander Levin and Curt Weldon

Among the major US & international companies that have participated in past conferences are CEOs and senior executives from: JP Morgan, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Julius Baer, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Firebird Management, American Century Funds, UBS Securities, Fidelity Investments, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Wolfensohn and Company, Lazard Kaplan International, US Export Import Bank, NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, ENI, Royal Dutch Shell, Halliburton, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, Chadbourne and Parke, Goldman Sachs International, Microsoft, Intel, Ernst and Young, Northland Power, PBN Company, Delta Airlines, Johnson and Johnson, Kraft Foods, Phillip Morris, Boeing/Sea Launch, Motorola, Calyon Bank, PERN, Vanco Energy, Westinghouse, Alliance Technology Group, Salans Partners, Pfizer, Hitachi America.

Among the major Ukraine based and Ukraine-focused companies, banks, and funds, the following have taken part: Dragon Capital , Horizon, UkrTelekom, Ukraine Export-Import Bank, Concorde Capital, Millennium Capital, Industrial Union of the Donbas, Sigma-Bleyzer, System Capital Management, D-Tek, Naftohaz Ukraine, UkrTransNafta, UkrNafta, Renaissance Capital, XXI Century, SoftServe Ukraine, Shevchenko-Didkovsky Partners, Farmak, Stirol, Pivdenmash, AeroSvit, Antonov, Kvazar Micro, and Gregory Arber.

US-Ukraine Working Group Yearly Summit Series

In 2007, CUSUR launched an Initiative in order to secure an array of experts in “areas of interest” for the Center and its various forums/proceedings; at the same time, it was hoped that the ‘experts’ might agree to write a series of ‘occasional papers’ to identify “major issues” impacting on US-Ukrainian relations.

As a start, four “areas of interest” were identified: politics-diplomacy, economics, security and historical-culturological. Once identified, appropriate ‘analytic networks’ were created. CUSUR’s analytic networks, when operating in tandem, came to constitute the “US-Ukraine Working Group”. The Group presently consists of 20 (5 from each sector of analytic interest for CUSUR) government, NGO and academic “specialists” from Ukraine and an equal number of counterparts from the United States (40 individuals in all).

The US-Ukraine initiative eventually spawned an interest in creating an informational presence capable of highlighting ‘CUSUR event/conference presentations of particular import’ as well as ‘the mentioned occasional papers’, or more precisely, prompted a determination to establish a bi-annual Journal of Ukrainian Affairs.

Concurrently, the network began contemplating an annual “US-UA Leadership Summit”. As originally envisioned, the gathering was intended to be a venue for focusing attention on the categories of interest named in the US-Ukraine Strategic Partnership Charter (and incidentally reflected exactly in CUSUR’s ‘analytic sectors’). The effort’s ultimate objective was to find or suggest ways to strengthen ties between the two countries in the near and far future.

Over time (starting in 2010), the anticipated Summit evolved a new and somewhat different task: to provide a yearly “six subject report card” on Ukraine’s “progress/regress with regard to robust democratic politics, developed market economics, ever greater general security, ever greater energy security, viable social cohesion and an established (yet tolerant) national identity”; its recalibrated goal was “to take accurate measure” of the status of the US-Ukrainian relations going forward. The step was taken because of repeated reports that the prevailing Ukrainian political leadership was ‘backsliding’ in several of the outlined categories (the last two categories—viable social cohesion and established national identity—were, in fact, added to monitor any indication of ‘critical internal or external erosion of UA sovereignty’).

In 2012, a ‘Summit’ dress rehearsal (Ukraine’s ‘Report Card’ on the Eve of Parliamentary Elections) was run as part of the UA Quest for Mature Nation Statehood RT Series—somewhat appropriately given that any ‘backsliding’ would in fact impact on the quest in question.

2013 saw the successful launch of the gathering as a ‘stand-­alone’ endeavor under a new ‘brand name’: US-UA WG Yearly Summit. In 2014, 2015 and again in 2016, CUSUR’s running of the Summit II, Summit III and Summit IV corroborated its commitment to the new series:

The last three mentioned events also confirmed that an ‘annual situational update assessment’ on Ukraine would be necessary even after the ‘backsliding’ UA leadership had been removed by the Euromaidan’s ‘Revolution of Dignity’ and replaced by a political class committed to full internal reform plus (renewed efforts at) integration into the Euro-­Atlantic Community. Given the persistence of Russia’s 2014 ‘intrusion’ into Ukraine (indicating that RU might not relent for a long time and might even attempt a “full scale invasion”), steady/regular monitoring of the ‘present’ condition of the Ukrainian state was a ‘must do’ proposition.

In 2017, CUSUR, using US-Ukraine Working Group Yearly Summit V, turned to operating the series under the new ‘mandate’. Since then the following summit gatherings have been held (either live or by Zoom during the Covid pandemic):

DC “Occasional Briefings” Series

CUSUR did not turn its attention to having a DC presence until summer 2012. Borrowing space when the need arose (particularly for various forum steering committees meetings) from the American Foreign Policy Council, its longest abiding partner, seemed to suffice; an Acela ride from the Center’s NY office did the rest. If there was a concern, it was to find appropriate representation in Kyiv.

Matters changed when Zenovia and George Jurkiw decided to provide the Center with a truly munificent ‘pozhertva’ (offering); it allowed CUSUR to open a fully functional bureau in DC (on the premises of APFC). With the acquisition of the stated space, CUSUR was given access to what has fondly come to be called AFPC’s own ‘Situation Room’. The room is equipped with the latest in ‘global communications’ equipment and fitted to seat several dozen ‘discussants’ comfortably. In addition, it sports detailed maps of ‘world’s geopolitical pivot points’.

The additional capabilities led the CUSUR Board of Directors to add one more item to the Center’s busy menu—the Occasional Briefings Series. The new series helped provide CUSUR (and, by extension, the US-UA Working Group) with the ability to analyze changing developments in the Ukrainian political landscape and provide timely appropriate responses throughout late 2012 and 2013.

Such flexibility proved of utmost importance once a truly unsettled state of affairs in Ukraine appeared in early 2014. To enhance the flexibility, the Occasional Briefings Series brought new (and younger) actors in the political, social, intellectual and cultural arenas of Ukrainian life to DC to explore ‘novel trends’, as they emerged. It also brought recently minted UA military commanders and senior security analysts to Capitol Hill to provide a proper understanding of the ‘conflict’ taking place first in Crimea and then on ‘UA’s Eastern Front’.The initial format of the new series reflected the style of two CUSUR gatherings that might be considered the prequel to the OBS:

The October 2014 arrival in Washington DC of Ukraine’s first president elected post Euromaidan, Petro Poroshenko, coaxed the OC Series into embracing new ‘deliberation arrangements” where necessary.

Pres. Poroshenko came to ask for means with which to contain an massive/open Russian military incursion into Eastern Ukraine that had started in August of the same year (in contrast to earlier RU escapades using ‘little green men’ and ‘secessionist cadres’). When the Obama Administration balked at the request, the Ukrainian American Hromada, in the form of an Ad Hoc Committee on Ukraine (AHCU), sought to mobilize the US Congress to counter the balk. AHCU, impressed with the military and security personnel that CUSUR had earlier sponsored, asked the Center to do a reprise of its ‘defense discussions on the Hill’ in mid November. The discussions proved fruitful beyond expectation. The reprise and serious lobbying by the AHCU helped obtain passage of a Ukraine Freedom Support Act in mid December (2014) authorizing the POTUS to provide lethal weaponry to the UA Armed Forces (and providing the appropriate funds for the authorization).

In 2015-2021, CUSUR, buoyed by its 2014 accomplishments, took to pursuing the Occasional Briefing Series construct on two more fronts:

[1] Using frequently blunt Chatham House style ‘conversations’ (richly enhanced by ‘top flight discourse leaders’ and ‘absolutely salient topics for review’) as often as once a month, the Center kept a watchful eye over the Ukraine Freedom Support Act and AHCU. When the Act stalled in the implementation stage in early 2015, CUSUR helped the AHCU run conversations to press (successfully) for the creation of a ‘Senate Task Force on Ukraine’ (modeled on the 1980s Senate Task Force on Afghanistan) designed to pressure the POTUS to release and deliver materiel (anti armor weapons, crew weapons, counter artillery radars, secure forms of communication) that had already received the proper legislative authorization and appropriation.

[2] Starting in 2019, CUSUR took to sponsoring (private & public) meetings/discussions between various Rada deputies from the most reform-minded of UA’s political parties (using the newly created Ukrainian Strategic Initiative group headed by Rada Deputy Andrij Levus) and senior-level US government and NGO officials at myriad venues through DC to keep everyone abreast of the ‘actual pace’ of needed internal improvements in UA. In 2020, before COVID-19 essentially shut down DC in late March of the year, CUSUR managed to organize two prominent Occasional Briefing gatherings, one featuring the two-time Hero of Ukraine, Lt. General Zabrodsky and the other highlighting a delegation from the Resist Capitulation Committee (an outgrowth of the USI). In 2021, work was initially suspended (COVID-related), but CUSUR managed in Oct. to organize a ‘special presentation event’ for UCU Vice-Rector Myroslav Marynowych, a very prominent chronicler of Ukraine’s liberation struggles in the late mid-20th century.

In 2022, while encumbered by the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian War (in addition to lingering Covid issues), the OCS managed to run a memorable event entitled: “OCS Special Event: “The Present & Future State of Russian Power Projection”. That event was recently (Oct 6 2023) matched by a gathering that met to divine: How US Policy Shapers Envision Russia’s Future

If the trajectory of the Russo-Ukrainian War remains as positive for Ukraine in 2023 as it was in 2022, expect much more activity in the OCS circuit during 2024.