“How to Win Friends for Ukraine”: The Experience of 17 Experts Promoting the Ukrainian Perspective Abroad

The joint project by Lviv Media Forum and The Ukrainians Media, "How to Win Friends for Ukraine," has gathered principles, tools, success stories, and practical recommendations from seventeen people who advocate for Ukraine's perspective in conversations with foreigners. The project’s heroes come from various fields: art, business, charity, human rights, media, psychology, and more. They find common ground with Americans, Swedes, Belgians, Danes, French, Italians, and others. The advice and examples collected here can serve as a guide, a bank of ideas, or a source of inspiration.

“How to Win Friends for Ukraine” is a collection of seventeen texts, each summarizing the experience of an ambassador of Ukrainian interests abroad. The idea for the project came from the Lviv Media Forum team as a continuation of the LMF 2024 conference, which focused on finding common ground in a polarized world.

"Ukrainians often complain about a wall of misunderstanding from foreigners in response to our calls to support our fight against Russian aggression. But are we doing everything we can to be heard and understood correctly?" comments Otar Dovzhenko, creative director of the Lviv Media Forum. "We decided to find people who have learned how to open windows in that wall and can teach others how to do the same."

The project's authors reached out to experts from various fields, living and working in different countries, asking them to share cases, approaches, and communication tools for foreign audiences.

The project’s heroes were asked the same questions, but the responses reflect a diverse range of experiences and approaches, offering unique stories and color: from generalized recommendations to insightful stories, from international finance to borscht with bread. "We understand that the multitude of right answers to the question 'How to win friends for Ukraine?' does not end here, and we encourage readers to seek their own know-how and share them," says Otar Dovzhenko. "This is just the beginning of the conversation: we plan to hold a series of meetings dedicated to the tools for advocating one's views in environments that are not particularly friendly to Ukraine."

Read the “How to Win Friends for Ukraine” project here.

This special project was created with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. The authors are responsible for the selection and presentation of facts and the views expressed in the texts, which do not necessarily reflect the views of the International Renaissance Foundation and do not impose any obligations on the Foundation.