On 23 October Nicosia will host the third Civil Resistance Forum. Diplomats, academics, journalists, lawyers and civil society activists from Cyprus, Lithuania and Ukraine will meet at the Old Campus of the University of Cyprus to discuss how democratic societies hold out through a long war, occupation, disinformation and foreign influence.
The forum is organised by the Lithuanian Community in Cyprus and the Community of Ukrainian-Cypriot Friendship, with support from the Embassy of Lithuania in Greece. This year’s theme is «Long Fight». The question behind it is a practical one: what does it take to keep resisting when a war does not end in months but drags on for years?
The opening remarks will be given by Constantinos Yiorkadjis, chairman of the Nicosia District local government organisation, Mindaugas Vyskupaitis, Counsellor of the Embassy of Lithuania, Vladyslav Lomako, Chargé d’Affaires of Ukraine in Cyprus, and Rūta Pečkytė, chairwoman of the Lithuanian Community in Cyprus.
The keynote, «How wars end?», will be delivered by Marios Efthymiopoulos, associate professor of international security and strategy, research professor at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas and director of Strategy International. He will be followed by Jonas Ohman, a Lithuanian journalist and filmmaker of Swedish origin and co-founder of Blue/Yellow, the largest European NGO supporting Ukraine’s defenders. Ohman will speak about the fight beyond the front line: how societies mobilise people, money and networks for civil resistance.
After lunch, a panel on occupation, international law and diplomacy will be moderated by Alkas Paltarokas, director of the Lithuanian NGO Strategic Initiative Center and an expert on hybrid warfare and disinformation. For Cyprus, whose northern part has been under Turkish occupation since 1974, the subject is anything but abstract.
Tetiana Pushnova, communications adviser at the Ukraine Cultural Heritage Fund, will explain why the restoration of Ukraine’s war-damaged monuments cannot wait and why cultural heritage is a matter of national security. Investigative journalist Boris Demash, founder of Cyprus Daily News, will speak on countering Russian narratives in public discourse. The forum will close with remarks by Andrius Kalindra, Ambassador of Lithuania to Greece, Cyprus and Albania.
Cyprus, Lithuania and Ukraine each know occupation and outside pressure from their own history, in different ways. The organisers stress that reacting to the next crisis is not enough. The institutions, networks and public support on which resistance depends have to be kept alive for years.
Participation is free, and the working language is English. Registration is open through an online form. The full programme is published on the website of the Lithuanian Community in Cyprus.
