News – Page 2 – M100 SANSSOUCI COLLOQUIUM

It is our duty not only to mourn, but to act

By Mike Schubert

It has been two and a half years since we honoured Alexei Navalny with the M100 Media Award for his unwavering commitment to democracy and transparency. His political companion and friend Leonid Volkov accepted the award on his behalf in Potsdam, as he was already in prison for his fight against Russia’s unjust regime. The news of his death reached us last week. We are deeply shocked.
And we are shocked that two years after the Russian army invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the war is still going on. Every day we receive new reports of people who have fallen victim to this war. Thousands have already lost their lives, millions have been forced to flee and are now seeking protection and a new home in countries like Germany. These figures are not just statistics; they represent individual fates, shattered dreams and the immense suffering of families torn apart.

It’s getting harder to hope

By Olga Rudenko

This Saturday, February 24, millions of people in Europe will wake up and go about their usual weekend business. They will be having brunches with friends, driving kids to playdates, and doing grocery shopping.
Here in Ukraine, millions of people will have a heavy heart this Saturday morning. This day, February 24, marks two years since Russia launched an all-out invasion of our country.
I was asked many times what that first day of invasion was like. I recounted it in my opening remarks at the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium in September 2022. I still remember it in all its details, hour by hour. One doesn’t forget hearing an air raid for the first time.
Are you still with me? If you are, thank you. Two years in, the stories of what Ukrainians go through don’t capture people’s attention as they used to. It’s human nature to grow more blunt about suffering after hearing about it again and again.

A genocide of the population is taking place in Ukraine

By Kai Diekmann

The brutal war against Ukraine has been going on for two years now. 24 months with many thousands of deaths, rapes, torture, the destruction of lives, livelihoods and homes and the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia. Two years in which families have been separated from their sons, husbands, brothers and friends because they are fighting on the front line without a break. Two years in which I worry about Ukrainian friends and colleagues covering the war.

To date, this genocide has cost the Ukrainian people more than 10,000 civilian victims, including nearly 600 children. Over 19,000 civilians have been injured, including over 1,000 children. I use the word genocide deliberately because that is what the Russian dictator wants to achieve: the extermination of the people of Ukraine. He will use any means to achieve this.

Ukraine will never become part of Russia

By Olesia Tytarenko

Once a week I take Spanish classes. My teacher is a native speaker, who lives in a Spanish-speaking country, “consumes” local news, and knows a lot about geopolitics and international relations. Every Sunday we begin our lesson by discussing the situation in Ukraine, the political turmoil in Latin America, and the global battles of the superpowers. One day, after asking “how are things going?” and answering “as usual. We’re hanging in there,” my teacher disarmed me. “If Ukraine loses, will you become part of Russia?”, she asked.

As a journalist, I understand that such a question has the right to exist. At the same time, I remember that a year ago, when we first met, my teacher was absolutely convinced of Ukraine’s victory and rightness. Should I stop the conversation? Stop communicating? Look for a new teacher? Learn the language on my own? In February 2024, two years after the start of a full-scale war, Ukraine is asking itself similar questions, the answers to which are certainly not unambiguous. There is no doubt about only one thing: Ukraine will never become part of Russia. At least because it has never been.

It seems that the world and Ukrainians are teetering on the brink of chaos

By Olga Konsevych

Since April 2022, I have been working from Germany, and even though I am safe, my life has changed many times. But whenever I face difficulties, I think of my colleagues who rush to the scene of shelling immediately after the air alarms die down or assist veterans and military personnel in raising funds for their most basic needs. Understanding the importance of not comparing suffering and not devaluing my own emotions doesn’t make this perception any easier.

Recently, Reporters Without Borders released updated statistics announcing that more than 100 journalists were injured in Ukraine during the war. Russia is actively targeting journalists who refuse to cooperate, and the fate of colleagues in the occupied territories remains uncertain.

The West is at peace because the Ukrainians are fighting

By Anna Romandash

On February 24, 2024, it will be two years since Russian full-scale invasion. Yet, the Russian war started much earlier – back in the winter of 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea by sending its “green men” into the peninsula as well as Eastern parts of Ukraine. Back then, Russia denied its involved in the Donbas region. Its misinformation campaign worked – half the world believed in some ludicrous notion of the civil war in Ukraine and that Russia was simply protecting its citizens in our country. Democracies looked away while Ukraine was largely left to its own devices – and had to fight off Russian invasion on its own.

A European future in peace is at stake

By Prof Dr Wolfgang Ischinger

It is now almost exactly two years since Russia’s President Vladimir Putin launched a major military attack on Ukraine. Three observations can already be made:

1. Putin has not only failed to achieve his original war aim, the subjugation of Ukraine and the removal of the elected Ukrainian leadership. On the contrary: Ukraine has been able to significantly strengthen its national identity as a result of the Russian interventions since 2014 and has since been resolutely seeking a path towards the West, the EU and NATO.

Moreover, contrary to Russian objectives, Putin has managed to ensure that traditionally neutral European states such as Sweden and Finland have joined NATO and that defence budgets have been increasing everywhere in the West for years. So, 1-0 in favour of Ukraine and the West?

Europe’s future will be decided in Ukraine

By Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko

Two years ago, in the early morning of 24 February 2022, Russian troops invaded Ukraine. Since then, everyone’s life has changed dramatically. Thousands of Ukrainians have been killed, injured, raped and children abducted to Russia.
There are bomb alarms day and night, and the country has been devastated in many places. But we stand firm. We are fighting. Not only for ourselves, for our people, for our identity, for our country, but also for a free and democratic Europe. We are also defending our western neighbours, who are as well on Putin’s list of incorporation dreams. Because if Ukraine falls, Putin will not stop his barbaric war of conquest.

He is openly conjuring up a full-scale social and economic mobilisation of Russia and threatening to attack Eastern European countries. For many years we have repeatedly warned of a massive attack by Putin on Ukraine, but nobody wanted to hear it. Instead, they continued to do business with the Russian dictator, funding his weapons and his army.

We mourn the death of Alexei Navalny

16 February 2024. We are deeply saddened by the news that Alexei Navalny has died after 1,126 days in detention.
The 47-year-old Russian opposition politician was tortured to death by his torturers.
In 2021, he was honoured with the M100 Media Award in Potsdam, wich was accepted by his companion and close friend Leonid Volkov. Our thoughts are with Alexei Navalny’s family and friends.

Paul Timmers: “Sovereignity in the Digital Age”

14 February 2024. Prof Dr Paul Timmers, Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute and M100SC 2022 participant, has written an essay on “Sovereignty in the Digital Age“. The text is published in the book “Introduction to Digital Humanism”, which can be downloaded for free here.
The book discusses the concept of digital humanism in contexts such as AI, platform power, surveillance, democracy and technology ethics. In his chapter, Paul Timmers looks at the future of sovereignty in a digital and geopolitically contested age, where the concept of state sovereignty takes on a new and much debated meaning due to digital disruption and borderless technologies, the dominance of powerful – often foreign – global technology companies, and cyber infiltration by malicious states. Timmers reflects on the impact of digital technology on the international state system and offers an analysis and some practical guidance on how to meet the challenges of developing public policies of sovereignty in the digital and digital-humanist age. Finally, two case studies and a series of questions invite readers to explore the topic further.