Oksana Syroid, Deputy Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, opened Lviv Security Forum 2018
Lviv Security Forum 2018 is to take place on October 24-26, 2018 in Lviv, Ukraine. The main subject of the forum is “The Economy of War and the War of Economics”. Some forty esteemed experts and public officials from more than ten countries (including Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the USA) are participating.
O.Syroid and Ben Hodges, Lieutenant General of the US Army (ret.), who until last year was the Commander of the US Allied Land Command in Europe, and participated in Lviv Security Forum in 2017, are the honorary co-chairs of the forum this year.
Among the top speakers of the forum are Glen Howard, President of the Jamestown Foundation, Reka Szemerkenyi, Vice President of CEPA (created by the current U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Wess Mitchell), Glen Grant, Lieutenant Colonel of the British Army (ret.) and the expert of the Ukrainian Institute of the Future, Steven Blockmans, Senior Fellow and the Head of the EU foreign policy (CEPS) and many others.
In her opening speech, the politician recollected a touching forum birth story running back to the then Yavoriv’s military exercises. Since then, says the chairperson's deputy, there has been a lot - joint trainings, work in Ukraine and abroad. During lengthy conversations at various locations, in different countries of the world, there was talked a lot about what the army should be, not only in Ukraine, which should be security for the world in principle, which should be interaction and trust between society and the armed forces, so that to resist aggression now.
“Afterwards, it did inspire me and my colleagues to create a similar platform where people could think and talk about it together," emphasized the deputy head of the parliament.
Worthy of note
The Lviv Security Forum 2018 will take place on October 24-26 at the Metropolitan Sheptytsky Center of the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. The organizers of the Forum are: NGO “Prosvita Institute”, Ukrainian Catholic University, City Institute, and Lviv city council. This year’s forum is being held in partnership with the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation of the German Marshall Fund, the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Ukraine, the International Renaissance Foundation.