The War Special Ep.8 - Oleksandr Akymenko

A conversation about fashion’s response to the war in Ukraine with Venya Brykalin, the fashion director of Vogue Ukraine. Gentle reminder that the best way to support the show is to simply subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify or  become our patron on Patreon patreon.com/howwewinthis

Olesya Gerashchenko (Shambur) is a researcher in culturology at the NaUKMA Doctoral School, a research fellow at the Mediation and Dialogue Research Center, a founder of the Ukrainian Center for Concordance, and co-author of the research “Nature of Future Conflicts” by The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. Inspiring podcast about ukrainian culture, ukrainian artists who are defending Ukraine right now about local Banksys and truly bravery. Gentle reminder that the best way to support the show is to simply subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify or  become our patron on Patreon patreon.com/howwewinthis

Lizaveta German is a researcher with a Ph.D. in art history, co-founder of The Naked Room Gallery, co-curator @ukrainianpavilioninvenoce at @labiennale and co-founder @ukrainian_emergency_art_fund Lizaveta spoke about first days of war and  her most recent experience of producing new exhibitions and of different ways to support Ukrainian artists in times of war. Gentle reminder that the best way to support the show is to simply subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify or  become our patron on Patreon.

Anton Borzov is the Product Designer at Neeva, he runs Sunflower Fund sunflowerfund.co and has spent time heading up product design at WhatsApp and supports Ukraine through his many angel investments. @danapavlychko and Anton discuss processes that happen all around the world and situation in Ukraine. Talk about the democracy fight, fundraising, innovation in Ukraine, and what we can learn from this tragedy. Gentle reminder that the best way to support the show is to simply subscribe to the show on YouTube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify or  become our patron on Patreon.

Andriy Klen is the co-founder of Pet Cube, design buro Ozero and since recently a platform supporting Ukrainian business Spend with Ukraine. In this episode we discussed how badass Ukrainians are for having multiple jobs at a time. Literally everyone does that right now: working your main job and then volunteering the rest of your time, which is a full-time job in itself. How do we still keep going like this? Where does the inspiration to actively run so many things come from? We also met with Andriy before the war and he had mentioned that his companies had plans for evacuation while we were convinced that a full on invasion is totally nuts. What were the first days for his companies like? What is it like to be a business leader in this time of war? How did he come up with an idea of Spend for Ukraine - a marketplace for all the things and services Ukraine has to offer,  and what is the international response to this initiative like? Listen to an episode to get answers to all the questions above. And check Spend with Ukraine - we love it and everyone should love it too. Episode mastering and music by Anima Sound Design If you like what we do, support us with donation Or with PayPal: [email protected]

In this episode we spoke to Maya Baklanova & Tanya Voytko, representatives of the ∄ community fund. ∄ is a phenomenal Kyiv based arts and music institution, of cult status. And the ∄ fund is aimed to provide financial, humanitarian and logistical support to the musical and cultural community that has been facing life-threatening challenges since the beginning of the russian invasion of Ukraine. At the beginning of the war the club community released an open letter - explaining what’s going on, indicating the ways the world can help and calling to cancel russian art and artists. A lot of people understood and supported, but in general this letter was largely discussed and heavily criticized and many people from western community still dare to think that “music is not political”. Apart from the fund activities we discussed the Ukrainian electronic music scene a bit. For instance, a couple of episodes ago Nastia DJ said that the Ukrainian electronic scene fell apart and showed itself as not being as united as we all thought it was. What do Maya and Tanya have to say about such a statement? In short: their experience is totally different. Listen to the new episode to understand the raw and authentic ukrainian electronic scene and how it survives during the War.  Episode mastering and music by Anima Sound Design If you like what we do, support us with donation Or with PayPal: [email protected]

Oleksandr Akymenko is the founder of Yes And Design - an innovations and design thinking consulting firm, one of the founders of platfor.ma - a major media outlet in Ukraine, co-founder of The Ukrainian Emerging Leaders Program at Stanford University and now he is a big part of the Ukrainian Global University. Sasha told us a lot about Ukrainian Global University. Basically it's not an actual university, but a metaphor, an organization that unites a lot of educational establishments who host Ukrainian students, who pay scholarships, fellowships etc. By now there are around 60 institutions (and hopefully this number is growing) around the world are 2700 Ukrainian applicants. The main goal is not to lose talents, to rebuild Ukraine with these students, to prevent the brain drain: all applicants sign a contract that obliges them to return to Ukraine afterwards.  This and many more interesting insights about educational support, lack of Ukrainian presence in the major world's universities and Sasha's personal views on what's going on in Ukraine in the new episode. 

We talked to Olha Hamama, who is a lawyer in Frankfurt, Germany and the founder of a huge non-profit to help Ukraine called United For Ukraine. Since the day 1 of the war Olga's project unites professionals from all over Europe and provides legal support, housing and options for education for Ukrainian refugees. For example, United for Ukraine collaborated with Airbnb to provide housing for Ukrainians fleeing their homes - they book a place for a month with no geographical limits. Apart from European civil society's responce and all the NGOs we also didn't miss a chance to ask Olga, who works and lives in Germany for 20 years, what she thinks about German's political hesitations and uncertainty as well as Macron's recent ridiculous statements. And yes, she is also disappointed and outraged, just as we are.  Olga is a true pro in her field of activity and a big helper of Ukraine. It was a huge pleasure to talk to her and we're sure it will be an even bigger one for you to listen. Episode mastering and music by Anima Sound Design If you like what we do, support us with donation Or with PayPal: [email protected]

From a spark between a couple of co-thinkers to a real NGO and one of the most productive media platform that already works with the government and sheds light on all the Russia’s atrocities. Serhiy Vovk told us how War Against War was born and what it aspires to be in the future. Spoiler: it basically aspires to be a vast and very well-designed presentation for the future Hague tribunal on Putin and Russia.  Serhiy is a favorite Ukrainian of many foreigners and we are sure you will fall for his frankness too. Listen to the new episode of The War Special and follow War Against War on Istagram. Episode mastering and music by Anima Sound Design If you like what we do, support us with donation Or with PayPal: [email protected]

Volodymyr Yermolenko is the bearer of many titles: a philosopher, a translator, a political expert, an essayist, an editor-in-chief of Ukraine World, an avid promoter of Ukraine and our fellow-podcaster. Dana and Volodymyr mainly discussed the deviant logic of Russian modus vivendi and operandi: everyone should lose, but Russia should lose less than others. If Russia does not expand, it will collapse. That’s the logic - the logic of cancer cells. Russia is ready to sacrifice its own economy, lives, everything with just one hope: that the collapse of their enemies will be even bigger. It’s wicked, it’s bad. This and much much more in a frank and clever talk with Volodymyr. Enjoy! Episode mastering and music by Anima Sound Design If you like what we do, support us with donation Or with PayPal: [email protected]