Alissa Timoshkina is a London-based food writer and historian specialising in Eastern European food culture. Originally from Siberia, Alissa comes from a Ukrainian-Jewish lineage, with her family history forming an important part of her culinary writing. Alissa holds a PhD in Soviet film and Holocaust history, however, her love of cooking pulled her away from an academic career. Since 2015 she’s been curating and hosting immersive dining experiences, offering cooking classes and authored two cookbooks ‘Salt and Time’. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Alissa initiated a global fundraising campaign, #CookForUkraine which raised over £2.5 million. Her new cookbook “Kapusta: vegetable-forward recipes from Eastern Europe” was punished earlier this year.

Molly Flynn is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre and Performance at Birkbeck, University of London. She is the editor of the 2023 anthology 'Ukrainian New Drama After Euromaidan Revolution' and author of the 2019 book 'Witness onstage: Documentary theatre in twenty-first-century Russia'. Alongside her work as a teacher and a researcher, Molly is also a producer and curator of socially engaged theatre. Her work includes the 'Women and War' project (2022) which supported the commissioning and translation of two short plays by leading Ukrainian playwrights Kateryna Penkova and Anastasiia Kosodii (December 2022), as well as 'On the War' at the Royal Court Theatre (April 2020), and 'Depicting Donbas: Creative and critical responses to the war in Ukraine' (2019).

Dr Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian and writer. She is the author of The Death of a Soldier Told by His Sister (2022). Khromeychuk has written for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Prospect and The New Statesman, and has delivered a TED talk on ‘What the World Can Learn From Ukraine's Fight for Democracy’. She has taught the history of East-Central Europe at several British universities and is currently the Director of the Ukrainian Institute London.

Maxine Marcus is an international criminal prosecutor and investigator with 28 years’ field and courtroom based experience in the international criminal justice. Her field work includes Chad (for Darfur), Sierra Leone, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Hungary, Kosovo, Ingushetia (for Chechnya), Cote D'Ivoire, Ethiopia (Gambella), Guinea, Kenya, South Korea (for North Korea), Guatemala, the Philippines, and South Sudan. Max directs Partners in Justice International, which provides mentoring for local prosecutors, investigators, and victim lawyers on cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, helping them bring justice to victims in their own national courts.

Martin Bright is editor at large at Index on Censorship. He has over 30 years of experience as a journalist, working for the Observer, the Guardian and the New Statesman among others. He has worked on several high-profile freedom of expression cases often involving government secrecy. He broke the story of Iraq War whistleblower Katharine Gun, which was made into the movie Official Secrets (2019) starring Keira Knightley.

Olia Hercules was born in Kakhovka, in the South of Ukraine. She trained at the renowned Leiths School of Food and Wine, then worked as chef de partie in restaurants and as a recipe developer. Her first book, Mamushka, went on to win the Fortnum and Mason Award for best debut cookbook and was followed by Kaukasis, Summer Kitchens and Home Food. After the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Olia co-founded a global initiative with her friend Alissa Timoshkina, to raise money for Ukraine through cooking. #cookforukraine has raised over £2 million pounds to date. Her new book, Strong Roots, will be out later this year.

Aarif Abraham is a barrister, writer, and speaker, based at Doughty Street International. He specialises in international criminal law and public international law including international human rights law and international arbitration. He advises policy makers, NGOs, states, and international organisations, including the United Nations, widely on constitutional issues, peacebuilding, and international crimes. Aarif is recognised as a leading barrister in international law in Chambers and Partners (2021-Present) and Legal 500. His domestic practice focuses on public law as well as criminal defence with a special focus on protests. Aarif is the founder of Accountability Unit, an NGO specialising in conflict-resolution and justice issues. He is the Author of A Constitution of the People and How to Achieve It, Columbia University Press, 2021.

Kateryna Babkina is a Ukrainian poet, prose writer, columnist, screenwriter, and playwright. She's the author of five poetry collections (Lights of Saint Elm, 2002, The Mustard, 2011, Painkillers and Sleeping pills, 2014, Charmed for Love, 2017, It does not hurt, 2021), a novel (Sonia, 2013), a novel in short stories (My Grandfather Danced the Best, 2019) and two collections of stories (Lilu after you, 2008 and Happy naked people, 2016). She has also written four books for kids (The Pumpkin year, The Hat and the Whale, Girls Power (co-authored with Mark Livin), and Snow heaty which are extremely popular in Ukraine.

 Her writings have been translated into English, Swedish, Polish, German, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Romanian, Czech, and Chinese. Her plays have been staged in Kyiv, Vienna, and Geneva. Translated books: poetry collection Ask for the same for all (Haver Laet Publishing House, Israel), novel Sonia (Warsztaty Kultury, Poland), novel Heute Fahre Ich nach Morgen (Haymon Verlag, Austria), a collection of short stories Szczęśliwi nadzy ludzie (Warsztaty Kultury Publishing House, Poland), Happy naked people (VINTAGEbooks, Cyprus), Nikt tak nie tańczył jak mój dziadek (Warsztaty Kultury Publishing House, Poland), Cappy and the Whale (Penguin Random House), and others.

Kateryna Babkina has written columns for Esquire Ukraine, Le Monde, and Harper's Bazaar. Her poetry was published in a number of anthologies and almanacs (The Kenyon Review (USA), Poem (UK), Washington Square Review etc).

There are several short movies based on Kateryna Babkina's stories. In 2016 a short film by her script was screened at Cannes Film Festival in the young director's selection.

In 2021 Kateryna Babkina won the Angelus Central European Literature Award for the My grandfather danced better than anyone else published in the Polish language. In 2022, Kateryna’s novella for children “Cappy and the Whale” was published in translation by Penguin Random House, UK. In April 2023, the e-book "Mom, do you remember?" was published in Ukrainian (Warstwy, Poland).

In October 2023, the book "Mom, do you remember?" was published in Polish, translated by Bohdan Zadura. In July 2024, it was published in hardcover in Ukrainian by Bilka publishing house.

Executive Director, Ukrainian St Mary’s Trust | Leader in Education & Humanitarian Relief. Since the full-scale invasion, Inna Hryhorovych has led St Mary’s Ukrainian School in creating a trauma-informed space for displaced children. She oversees 200 educators across 14 schools, supporting 2,500 children weekly through structure, routine, and leisure. Under her leadership, the Trust’s Trauma Recovery Team was nominated for the Lionel Hersov Memorial Award. Honoured with an MBE in 2023, Inna has over 22 years of teaching experience and remains committed to ensuring children’s stability and growth. Originally from Chernivtsi, Ukraine, she relocated to the UK in 2009 and continues to lead with dedication and impact.

Val Voshchevska is a Ukrainian activist, campaigner and digital strategist based in London. She has spent her career working with some of the world’s biggest civil society organisations and grassroots movements, helping them harness the power of social media to fight harmful narratives and mobilise people for change. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of her native Ukraine in 2022, she left her full-time job as Global Head of Digital Engagement at Amnesty International and started focusing all of her time on helping Ukraine, professionally and through her own social media channels. She has been instrumental in planning and winning major campaigns for Ukraine, notably getting companies like Pernod Ricard and Unilever out of Russia.

Viv Groskop is a writer, comedian and broadcaster. She is a regular guest presenter on BBC Radio 4 and is host of the hit podcast How to Own the Room, featuring guests like Hillary Clinton and Margaret Atwood and in its 24th series with over 2.5 million downloads. She is the author of seven books, including the international bestseller How to Own the Room: Women and the Art of Brilliant Speaking. Her new memoir One Ukrainian Summer is a story about falling in love and coming of age in the former Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall and is partly set in Zelenskyy’s home town Krivih Rih, where Viv spent time in the mid 1990s. All author proceeds from this book go to PEN International for their Writers at Risk program. Her other books include The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature and Au Revoir, Tristesse: Lessons in Happiness from French Literature.

Charlie Banner is a King’s Counsel at Keating Chambers and a working peer in the House of Lords. His wife Tetyana is Ukrainian and they have two British-Ukrainian children as well as family in the Kyiv and Donbas areas. In Parliament he is a regular advocate for justice for Ukraine, and he is a Patron of the Restart Foundation, a charity promoting mental health and well-being in Ukraine.

Val Voshchevska is a Ukrainian activist, campaigner and digital strategist based in London. She has spent her career working with some of the world’s biggest civil society organisations and grassroots movements, helping them harness the power of social media to fight harmful narratives and mobilise people for change. After Russia’s full-scale invasion of her native Ukraine in 2022, she left her full-time job as Global Head of Digital Engagement at Amnesty International and started focusing all of her time on helping Ukraine, professionally and through her own social media channels. She has been instrumental in planning and winning major campaigns for Ukraine, notably getting companies like Pernod Ricard and Unilever out of Russia.

Hanna Komar is a Belarusian poet, writer, translator and performer. She’s published five poetry collections, including the most recent Ribwort, and a non-fiction book about the experience of incarceration for peaceful protest in Belarus. Her debut play Body in Progress was staged at the Voila! festival in London.

Hanna's a member of PEN Belarus and an honorary member of English PEN. Freedom of Speech 2020 Prize laureate from the Norwegian Authors’ Union. She's currently taking a PhD at the University of Brighton, exploring how poetry can support Belarusian women to share experiences of domestic abuse and state violence.