News – Page 17 – M100 SANSSOUCI COLLOQUIUM

Olga Konsevych: “The Children are the Symbol of this War”

6 March 2022. “The children are the symbol of this war,” writes Olga Konsevych in an article published today in the pro-European British weekly “The New European”. “They travel for 15 – 20 hours on evacuation trains; they sleep fitfully in the overcrowded carriages and look anxiously through the windows of the train that is taking them into the unknown, at the destroyed world.”
Olga Konsevych is editor-in-chief of the Ukrainian news platform 24tv.ua and an M100 Alumna. In her article she describes her escape from Kiev and the fear and desperation of the Ukrainian people.
Here you can find her text in the original version.

M100 Alumna Anastasiia Ivantsova: “The world must know that Russia is lying!”

4 March 2022. “We need help and publicity. Vox Ukraine, fact-checking organisation and IFCN member of Ukraine, can provide you with information. Here is our overview of provocations and disinformation:

– Every two hours, the Vox Ukraine team publishes an overview of the aggressors’ provocations and disinformation attempts.
– Here you can find the victories of the Ukrainian army. Our army repels enemy attacks and defends every settlement and citizen of Ukraine.
– And here is our statement on this war.

The world must know that Russia is lying about this war.”

Anastasiia Ivantsova has been working as a data analyst at the independent analytics platform VoxCheck in Kyiv since 2019. She was an investigative journalist on the Schemes project on Radio Liberty and has worked for the business programme Prostonomica on Hromadske. In 2016 she participated in the M100YEJ.
Twitter @tsovkan

We stand by your side!

2 March 2022. We pay our deepest respect and support for our M100 Media Award laureate Vitali Klitschko, his brother Wladimir, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and all the brave Ukrainian who fiercely defended themselves and stood in front of the Russian tanks and fight for freedom, democracy,human rights and a free Ukraine!

Vitali Klitschko and his brother Wladimir tirelessly send messages to the world. They post their appeals on social media, give interviews in Ukrainian, Russian, English and German. Demonstrate strength, stay by their people’s side and give them courage. Calling on international partners around the world to stand by Ukraine “in this senseless war that will have no winners, only losers”.

Vitali Klitschko – like President Zelenskyy – was often ridiculed and discredited as incompetent and corrupt. Those days are over. They are at the top of Putin’s death list, but they refuse to leave their country, their people.

“I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelenskyy replied to the Americans who offered to take him out of the country.

They are heroes who deserve all our respect and support.

And we pay respect to the Russian people who are taking to the streets against Putin, and to the independent journalists like Natalia Sindeeva, M100 Media Award laureate 2017, who have been reporting the truth for many years against the greatest odds and despite danger to life and limb, and who long for freedom and democracy. Many have already been guests at the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium and the M100YEJ in Potsdam. We also stand by your side.

#WeStandWithUkraine #StayWithUkraine #FreeNavalny

Statements of our M100 Alumni in Ukraine: Olesya Bida

1 March 2022. “The weapon of Ukrainian journalists is verified information without Russian falsifications. Almost all my colleagues have left Kiev. It is really dangerous to be here now.
We work from different cities, but I never thought our team would be so strong. Some of my colleagues work from underground shelters. I am very proud of them.”

Olesya works as a journalist for the independent Ukrainian medium hromadske.ua, which was founded eight years ago during the Maidan Revolution.
She reports live from the streets of Kiev, from destroyed buildings, traumatised people, fear, but also hope.
In 2016 she participated in the M100YEJ.
Twitter @OlesyaBida

Advisory Board of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium shows solidarity with the Ukrainian people and Vitali Klitschko

Potsdam, 25 February 2022. The Advisory Board of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium, chaired by Potsdam’s Lord Mayor Mike Schubert, expresses its solidarity with the Ukrainian people and with Vitali Klitschko, Mayor of Kiev and M100 Media Award laureate 2014. In 2014, Klitschko was the face of the largely democratic, pro-Euroepan opposition which achieved the dismissal of former President Viktor Yanukovich. To this day, as mayor of the Ukrainian capital, he is a symbol of Kiev’s and the entire Ukraine’s desire for freedom.

“Even as a Lord Mayor I can only guess the great pressure in this terrible war situation on Vitali Klitschko and his fellow mayors who have to organise civil defence. Our thoughts are with the people in Ukraine who have been affected by Russian aggression,” said Potsdam’s Lord Mayor Mike Schubert. “We must and will do everything we can to end this brutal, senseless war that threatens the democratic order of Europe. As the Safe Haven Cities Alliance, in which 120 German cities are committed to taking in refugees, we will do everything we can to support the Ukrainians, with aid deliveries as well as by taking in those people who are forced to leave their homes.”

We, the members of the M100 Advisory Board, will do everything in our power to continue to give the people of Ukraine a voice in our media.

Signatories: Mike Schubert, Prof. Dr h.c. Alexandra Borchardt, Stephan-Andreas Casdorff, Kai Diekmann, Astrid Frohloff, Jann Jakobs, Christoph Lanz, Mathias Müller von Blumencron, Dr Leonard Novy, Dr Christian Rainer, Sabine Schicketanz, Dr Uwe Vorkötter, Moritz van Dülmen, Sabine Sasse

“Nord Stream 2 isn’t just a pipeline, it’s a symbol”

23 February 2022. Interview with Christoph Lanz, member of the M100 Advisory Board and Head of Board Thomson Media, on the Russian conflict and the role of Germany. The interview was conducted by Vazha Tavberidze, regular participant of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquim, for the Georgian Service of Radio Free Europe and has been slightly shortened. It appeared in the original on 15 February on the occasion of Chancellor Scholz’s visit to Moscow.

Vazha Tavberidze: Would Germany and Scholz be willing to toe the Washington line when it comes to Nord Stream 2?

Christoph Lanz: If something happens around Ukraine regarding the sanctions, I’m 100% confident that we will not start to operate Nord Stream 2, that’s for sure. If the German government decides differently, if Putin starts a new aggression against Ukraine and we don’t touch Nord Stream 2, this means he managed to successfully divide Europe. Nord Stream 2 isn’t just a pipeline anymore, it’s now a symbol too.

Our Alumni Network: Sara Cincurova

20 February 2022. Sara Cincurova is a human rights journalist from Slovakia. She is currently reporting on the humanitarian crisis and conflict in eastern Ukraine. In a recent photo story she describes the struggle for survival of women living on the Ukrainian front.

Her work focuses on migration, humanitarian issues, human rights and women’s rights. Her work has been published in The Guardian, BBC, Al Jazeera, Der Spiegel, Huffington Post and The New Humanitarian.

Sara has reported from over 15 countries around the world, including sexual violence against women prisoners in Venezuela or against pregnant women in Libyan detention centres.

In 2021, she was a journalist on board the search and rescue ship Sea-Eye 4 in the Mediterranean and reported on the rescue of 408 refugees and asylum seekers.
In 2016, she was a participant in the M100 YEJ on investigative journalism.
Find out more about Sara here.

“In Kyiv, we remain fearless. But war is becoming a backdrop to everyday life”

19 February 2022. Nataliya Gumenyuk has written an emotional text for the Guardian, which was published today.
Nataliya is an Ukrainian journalist, specialising in foreign affairs and conflict reporting. She is co-founder and head of the independent internet channel Hromadske.TV and has participated at the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium in 2016.

On her Facebook profile she introduced her text with very personal words:
“First of all, at the moment I feel pity about those people in Donetsk and other towns in the Donbas who are called to be evacuated to Russia, with all the sirens rising and people in the lines to petrol station. That hysteria is all over the local telegram channels. I’ve written this column for The Guardian tonight about the week in Ukraine. And though I was not skeptical, and still think something in a mid of chaos can happen here (as a major power cut), the eyes and ears should be in the Donbas. As in the end, those who lived with this war would again suffer most.”

“We would like Russia to be held accountable not only after the attack, but before planning it”

16 February 2022. Today, the Romanian public radio station Radio România Iași, which broadcasts to the Romanian region of Moldova and is also available in most parts of Moldova and parts of Ukraine, published an interview with the deputy editor-in-chief of the National Public Broadcasting Company of Ukraine, Olesia Tytarenko. Olesia Tytarenko as well as the interviewer Lucian Bălănuță are alumni of M100 and have participated in Young European Journalists Workshops.

The telephone interview conducted in English can be found on the website of Radio Iași (at the end of the text translated into English here):

The United States and the European Union have been working to de-escalate the situation in Ukraine amid an increased Russian military presence on Kiev’s borders. Today is the deadline put forward by a number of Western intelligence services as a potential day of military intervention by Moscow. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed that the dialogue must continue after talks in the Russian capital yesterday.

Alberto Alemanno is Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year

14 February 2022. Alberto Alemanno, Professor of Law at HEC Paris Business School, founder of The Good Lobby and speaker at M100 2021, was named “Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year” at the World Economic Forum #DavosAgenda.

He plays “an essential role in HEC Paris’ mission to create positive impact on the economy and society through cutting-edge research, education and action,” said Eloic Peyrache, Dean odes HEC Paris.

We offer our warmest congratulations!

For more information about Professor Alemanno, the award and the citation, click here.