05/20/2026

The keynote speaker of the Lviv Media Forum program was Maksym Butkevych — a Ukrainian human rights defender, journalist, civic activist, and serviceman who was held in Russian captivity during the Russian-Ukrainian war. The recording of the opening ceremony is available here (in English).

“We can neither flee nor freeze when our reality is under attack. Because our reality is us. Because by fleeing or freezing — if we ever were to do so — we would continue to create a reality, but a completely different one: a reality of defeat, where we would have renounced our freedom and our fundamental values. Yet we would not be free of responsibility for it. We carry our reality with us, for ourselves and for others; we create it and bring it to life through interaction and conflict, through resilience and vulnerability, through disagreements and mutual support”, Maksym Butkevych emphasized.

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