Yevhen Kostohryzov, a student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (NaUKMA), examined the legal and political mechanisms that could lead to restricting or stripping Russia of its UN membership and its seat as a permanent member of the Security Council. The essay was submitted to the #UnRussiaUN competition organized by the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation.
The Ministry of Youth and Sports of Ukraine and the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation NGO have signed a Memorandum of Cooperation that defines priority areas of work in strengthening Ukrainian national and civic identity and youth policy.
On June 19, 2026, the online Student-Diplomat Roundtable “AI, War, and Ethics: Can Technology Be Neutral?” will take place. The event is organized by the Ukrainian-Gulf Cooperation Platform and the NGO “Diplomacy in Action.” The roundtable brings together diplomats, scholars, representatives of state institutions, local self-government bodies, international organizations, and student youth to discuss one of the most pressing challenges of our time — the impact of artificial intelligence on war, international security, law, and diplomacy.
In February 2022, when the UN Security Council convened an emergency session following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, no one truly expected a different outcome. Russia said “no” — and blocked any resolution. One vote. One permanent member. And the complete helplessness of an organization founded precisely to prevent such things from ever happening again. That moment was not merely a symbol of a particular diplomatic failure — it exposed a structural pathology embedded since 1945: the international collective security system proved architecturally incapable of responding to aggression by one of its own founders. The question “can Russia be expelled from the UN?” is therefore not simply a legal puzzle, but a question about the limits of international law, about the logic of realpolitik, and ultimately about what strategy Ukraine should pursue in a world where the rules were not written for it.
The “Roots and Wings: History That Unites” project by the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation has become one of 14 winners of the all-Ukrainian competition “Bridges of Solidarity with Ukraine,” implemented by the “Social Capital” program of the International Renaissance Foundation. The competition aims at institutional strengthening of Ukrainian educational and civic hubs in Northern Europe and the Baltic states. A total of 180 applications were submitted.
Author: Ruslana Petrivna Kistechok, 3rd-year student of the “International Relations, Social Communications and Regional Studies” programme, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Lviv Polytechnic National University
Yaryna Yasynewych, Program Director of the Pylyp Orlyk Foundation, participated as a panelist in the XIV Annual Summit of the US-Ukraine Working Group (Ukraine in Wartime. Year Five), held on June 17 in Washington. She served as an expert on a panel dedicated to the state of democracy and social cohesion in Ukraine under conditions of full-scale war.
The modern system of international law, which emerged after World War II, is now in a state of deep crisis. Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — now in its fourth year in 2026 — the United Nations has demonstrated its inability to fulfill the core function enshrined in its Charter: maintaining international peace and security. This problem is most visible in the UN Security Council, where Russia abuses its veto power to block any binding resolutions concerning its own aggression. For Ukraine, this is not merely a question of justice, but of the state’s very survival. In this essay, I will attempt to analyze whether real international legal mechanisms exist to expel the Russian Federation from the UN or at least strip it of its voting rights in the Security Council.
An international discussion titled “A Post-Colonial Conflict? Russia, Imperialism, and the War against Ukraine” was held at the University of Vienna, dedicated to examining the Russo-Ukrainian war in the broader context of imperialism, colonialism, and historical memory.