This week’s panel of the LSE IDEAS’ Russia-Ukraine Dialogues will focus on narrative management and disinformation. Speakers will discuss the following issues:

• Putin’s use and abuse of history;
• Russian information warfare;
• Ukraine’s counter efforts to thwart Russian disinformation.

Meet the speakers and chair

Hanna Hopko is an expert in advocacy, on Russian expansionism and hybrid warfare. From 2014-2019, she chaired the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament. Hopko was one of the civic leaders of the EuroMaidan during Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity. Ms. Hopko was elected to Parliament from the pro-European Self-Reliance Party in 2014 and later served as an independent MP. She is currently the Chairwoman of Democracy in Action Conference.

Edward Lucas is a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). He was formerly a senior editor at The Economist. Lucas has covered Central and Eastern European affairs since 1986, writing, broadcasting, and speaking on the politics, economics, and security of the region. A graduate of LSE and long-serving foreign correspondent in Berlin, Vienna, Moscow, and the Baltic states, he is an internationally recognized expert on espionage, subversion, the use and abuse of history, energy security and information warfare. He is the author of four books: The New Cold War (2008); Deception (2011); The Snowden Operation (2014), and Cyberphobia (2015).

Margaret MacMillan is the LSE IDEAS Engelsberg Chair in History and International Affairs for 2021/22 academic year. She is also an Emeritus Professor of International History at the University of Oxford and former Warden of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. She specializes in the history of the British Empire and the international history of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Kamil Mikulski is a senior hybrid threats and disinformation analyst at the Kosciuszko Institute, and a PhD student in strategic communication against hybrid threats at the Rey Juan Carlos University. He advises within the EU Commission Expert Group on Tackling Disinformation and Promoting Media Competences through Education and Training. Furthermore, he is a fellow of NATO StratCom CoE, the Center for European Policy Analysis, and an alumnus of the Visegrad School of Polital Studies’ s United 4 News:  Building Democratic Resilience against Disinformation programme. Academically, Kamil holds an advanced M.A. in EU International Relations and Diplomacy Studies from the College of Europe, and an LLM from the Wroclaw University.

Leon Hartwell is the Sotirov Fellow at LSE IDEAS and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Washington D.C. His research interests include conflict resolution, genocide, transitional justice, diplomacy, democracy, and the Western Balkans. Previously, Hartwell was CEPA’s Acting Director of the Transatlantic Leadership Program and a Title VIII Fellow.  From 2012 to 2013, he was also the Senior Policy Advisor for Political and Development Cooperation at the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Zimbabwe, where his work included government and civil society engagement, political reporting, peace building projects, and supporting human rights defenders. In 2019, Hartwell completed a joint doctoral degree summa cum laude at Leipzig University (Germany) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa). His thesis analyzed the use of mediation in the resolution of armed conflicts.

More information about the event

Event hashtag: #LSERussiaUkraine

LSE IDEAS (@lseideas) is LSE's foreign policy think tank. Through sustained engagement with policymakers and opinion-formers, IDEAS provides a forum that informs policy debate and connects academic research with the practice of diplomacy and strategy.

This panel is part of LSE IDEAS' Russia-Ukraine Dialogues. Given the recent escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian war (24 February 2022), the conflict continues to be fluid and requires cross-disciplinary analysis. Weekly panels, scheduled for every Tuesday, will bring together in-house and external experts to report on and discuss the war’s impacts on various global issues.