Infrastructures are both physical and knowledge-based. Physical infrastructures—such as bridges, power plants, and cable networks—and knowledge infrastructures—including universities and civil society organizations—are increasingly being attacked and destroyed in Ukraine and its occupied territories by Russia’s full-scale invasion. As geopolitical uncertainties rise, these attacks are also increasingly affecting other parts of Europe. In this lecture series, we will discuss what infrastructural resilience means today, how it is being tested by different forms of attack, but also how resilience can become preventive rather than merely reactive towards physical and informational attacks. We will focus on socio-technical, historical, cultural, economical aspects of both infrastructures and resilience, and find out what role critical engagement plays in shaping infrastructural developments.

14.10.25
Infrastructures of Hope and Resilience: Governing Uncertainty
David Chandler, Professor of International Relations, University of Westminster, London (UK)

21.10.25
Critical infrastructure as a crucial factor in the Russo-Ukrainian war of attrition, 2014-2025
Alexander Osipian, Visiting Professor for Entangled History of Ukraine, European University Viadrina

28.10.25
Efforts of Local Governments in Ukraine to Respond to the Wartime Challenges
Oleh Nivievsky, Assistant Professor, Kyiv School of Economics; KIU Guest Lecturer, European University Viadrina

04.11.25
Sonic Resistance: Experimental Music and Cultural Activism in Wartime Ukraine
Dmytro Goncharenko, Art Historian, Modern Art Research Institute Kyiv (Ukraine); KIU Research Fellow

11.11.25
Crisis-Innovation-Transformation: Digital Financial Infrastructures in Wartime and Postwar Ukraine
Konrad Sobański, Associate Professor at the Poznan University of Economics and Business (PUEB), Poland; KIU Research Fellow

18.11.25
The Power of Ukrainian Memes: From Social Therapy to Building National Memory and Supporting Civilian Infrastructure.
Nataliia Mushyrovska, Associate Professor for Ukrainian Literature at Rivne State University for the Humanities, Ukraine; KIU Research Fellow

25.11.25
„War Songs“: Film Screening & Talk
Sashko Protyah, freefilmers Mariupol

02.12.25
Terror Infrastructures under and beyond Occupation: Environing Regimes of Control
Svitlana Matviyenko, Associate Professor, School of Communication, and Associate Director, The Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby (Canada) (tbc)

09.12.25
Cross-Linguistic Framing of Emotion and Ideology: The Media’s Role in Translating and Shaping Narratives of the Russian-Ukrainian War
Yaroslava Gnezdilova, Professor for Philological Sciences, Dean of the Faculty of Germanic Philology and Translation at Kyiv National Linguistic University, Ukraine; KIU Research Fellow

16.12.25
Lived Waterscapes in Ukraine: hydrosocial relations, infrastructures, and more-than-human beings
Francesc Rodríguez, Assistant Professor in Environmental Humanities and STS at Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus–Senftenberg (BTU); KIU Research Fellow

06.01.26
Transnational Resilience Infrastructures: Solidarity in Times of National Egocentrism and War
Waldemar Rapior, Assistant Professor at the Department of Sociology, University of Warsaw (Poland), KIU Research Fellow

13.01.26
“Images and Objects of Russia’s war against Ukraine”: Book presentation and discussion
Natasha Klimenko, Miglė Bareikytė and Viktoria Sereda

20.01.26
Everything for Everybody: Archival Resilience in Wartime Ukraine
Viktoria Donovan, Professor of Ukrainian and East European Studies, University of St Andrews (UK)

27.01.26
„Complexity and Community in IR: nurturing resilience in Central Eurasia“: Book presentation and discussion
Elena Korosteleva, Professor of International Politics and Director of the Institute of Global Sustainable Development (IGSD), University of Warwick, Coventry (UK)