Svitlana Zalishchuk

Svitlana Zalishchuk is a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament elected in October 2014. She is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and Head of the Sub-Committee on European and Euro-Atlantic Relations. From 2014 to 2016, Ms. Zalishchuk was a member of the Ukrainian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She was the first MP in Ukraine who publicly joined the LGBT pride movement in 2015. Ms. Zalishchuk was an active leader of the Euromaidan movement that started in 2013. She worked for five years as Executive Director of NGO Centre UA, a Kyiv-based non-governmental organization with a special focus on human rights and anti-corruption. Ms. Zalishchuk coordinated a number of influential civic campaigns in Ukraine, including the Reanimation Package of Reforms, CHESNO movement and the “Stop Censorship!” initiative. In 2005-2006, she headed the Department of Information at the Presidential Administration of Ukraine. Ms. Zalishchuk graduated from the Institute of Journalism at the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. Her current activities include foreign affairs and security, human rights, including anti-corruption movement, LGBT issues and gender equality.

Kurt Volker
Former U.S. State Department Special Representative for Ukraine, YES Annual Meeting, 2023
«Ukraine is engaged in an existential struggle against an imperialist power»