The Ukraine Lecture Series organised by the KIU in cooperation with the Jerzy Giedroyc Research Colloquium at the European University Viadrina begins on 14 April. Two panel discussions, the ceremonial opening of the PhD programme on 16 June and lectures by international acknowledged researchers and scientists are dedicated to discussing and reflecting on the 2025 semester theme ‘Ukraine in Europe: controversies, complexity and the ability to act in a multi-layered interdependence’:

Europe and Ukrainian European identity have long been important topics in Ukraine, while from a Western European perspective, Ukraine was in a marginal position for a long time. Today, Ukrainian-European entanglements are being researched more intensively, and the issue of Ukrainian membership in the European Union has gained new momentum. The lecture series analyses Ukrainian-European relations, cooperation, conflicts, cultural references and dynamics, both in relation to Europe as a whole and to the European Union.

With the Russian War of aggression against Ukraine entering its fourth year in 2025, and new political leadership in the United States as well as in some European countries, the issue of Ukrainian membership in the European Union has gained new momentum. More imminent than previously, EU membership for Ukraine could be part of a broader deal to end the war, but integration is not a foregone conclusion either. Against this background, the analysis of Ukrainian-European relations, cooperation, conflicts, cultural references and dynamics, both in relation to Europe as a whole and to the European Union, is the focus of research at the KIU in the summer semester of 2025.

UKRAINE LECTURE SERIES

Ukraine in Europe: Controversies, complexities and agency
of a multifaceted interconnection

presented by Jerzy Giedroyc Kolloquium and Competence Network Interdisciplinary Ukrainian Studies Frankfurt (Oder)-Berlin (KIU)

Monday, 6 – 8 p.m. I Room GD 102 IO Gräfin-Dönhoff-Building (GD) I Europaplatz 1, 15230 Frankfurt (Oder)

14.4.25 Ukraine in Europe: What controversies, complexities and agency determine our common future?, Timm Beichelt (Professor for European Studies, European University Viadrina), Ljudmyla Melnyk (Head of the Ukraine programme, Institut für Europäische Politik e.V.), Fausta Šimaitytė (Head of Office in Lithuania at Konrad Adenauer Stiftung)

28.4.25 Membership in the EU: Perspectives of Ukrainian elites and society, Mykhailo Minakov (DAAD Guest Professor, European University Viadrina),
Lecture in Cooperation with Viadrina Master of Arts in European Studies and DAAD, followed by a reception

5.5.25 Eastern Partnership Perspectives on Ukrainian EU Integration, Andrea Gawrich (Professor for International Integration with a special focus on Eastern Europe, Justus Liebig University Gießen)

12.5.25 Does Ukraine Possess an Agency? A Historical Perspective, Georgiy Kasianov (Professor for History at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin, Poland)

19.5.25 Paths to Ukrainian EU integration beyond the conditionality approach, Arndt Freytag von Loringhoven (Diplomat; former ambassador of Germany to Poland and the Czech Republic)

26.5.25 How to manage integration into the EU market: Lessons from Eastern Enlargement for Ukraine’s EU Accession Julia Langbein (Head of Research Cluster: Political Economy and Integration, Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS))

2.6.25 War and Boundary Formation: the European Integration of Ukraine, Frank Schimmelfennig (Professor of European Politics and a member of the Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zurich)

16.6.25 (anderer Raum: Logensaal, Logenstraße 11) Opening Ceremony of the KIU doctoral programme: Resilience, Restoration and Transformation. Ukraine in a world of turmoil
Keynote and Panel Discussion with Volodymyr Sheiko (General Director of the Ukrainian Institute),
Yulia Yurchuk (Associate Professor , Senior Lecturer of History of Ideas at Södertörn University, Sweden),
Elena Korosteleva (Professor of Politics and Global Sustainable Development, Director of the Institute for Global Sustainable Development, Warwick University)

23.6.25 Germany, Ukraine, Europe: Approaches, Policies and Misunderstandings in the 1990s, Jan Claas Behrends (Professor for Dictatorship and Democracy. Germany and Eastern Europe from 1914 to the Present, European University Viadrina)

30.6.25 (Anderer Raum: Senatssaal HG 109, Große Scharrnstraße 59), Can Civil Peace Extend beyond the Nation State?
Europe, NATO, and the U.S. in the Shadow of the Russia-Ukraine War, Jeffrey Alexander (Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University)

7.7.25 Can EU External Action ensure justice and fair Peace Deal for Ukraine in Trump 2.0 era? Mission im/possible?, Roman Petrov (Jean Monnet Chair in EU Law, National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy)

14.7.25 From the Weimar Triangle to the Frankfurt Quadrangle – new perspectives for European cooperation, tba