Registration REQUIRED by 4pm on October 11, 2026 in order to attend this event.
Please join the Ukrainian Studies Program at the Harriman Institute and the Columbia University Ukrainian Club for a meeting with Ukraine’s two Youth Delegates to the United Nations this year, Daryna Varenyk and Tetiana Kucher, who will discuss what it is to represent a country at war at the UN. Before arriving in New York for the 81st session of the General Assembly, they held youth consultations in seven Ukrainian cities in seven days – Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia and Lviv – plus an online session for Ukrainians abroad, asking two questions: what is working in Ukraine that the world could learn from, and what brings Ukrainians the most suffering? Education under fire, security, and the return of deported children were the topics that came up most often. The two delegates will discuss Ukraine’s current international priorities, what meaningful youth participation looks like when the stakes are this high, and a governance idea they are researching: how different generations might share decision rights over long-term outcomes. The event is planned more of as a discussion than a lecture. Students are invited to bring questions.
Moderated by Sofia Pinedo-Padoch, with an interactive segment led by Elise Giuliano.
Daryna Varenyk is a Youth Delegate of Ukraine to the United Nations and leads International Cooperation at the Better Regulation Delivery Office, Ukraine’s biggest regulatory reform think tank. She founded the Headquarters of the Ukrainian Youth Worldwide, a platform connecting Ukrainian youth organizations and student societies in more than 20 countries. She holds a degree in International Economic Relations from the Institute of International Relations at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, studied in Utrecht, and is an alumna of the Hoover Institution Summer Policy Boot Camp at Stanford. She leads the research initiative on Intergenerational Co-Stewardship.
Tetiana Kucher is a Youth Delegate of Ukraine to the United Nations and Head of the Advisory Department at the Youth Council under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, where she currently collaborates with the MFA’s First European Department on the Council’s behalf. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, with a mobility semester at Sciences Po Reims. She has interned at the Council of Europe division of the MFA’s Department of International Organizations and in the political department of the Embassy of Ukraine in France, and has authored analytical papers with the Ukrainian Prism think tank and the MFA. Her work focuses on strengthening Ukraine’s engagement with international organizations and advancing youth participation in foreign policy.
Elise Giuliano is Senior Lecturer in Political Science; Director of the MARS-REERS Program and Director of the Program on U.S.-Russia Relations who has done research in east Ukraine on public opinion.
Sofia Pinedo-Padoch is an anthropologist of Ukraine and the United States with a specialty in property, rebuilding, displacement, war, material culture, and bureaucracy. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from Princeton University. She is the Petro Jacyk Postdoctoral Research Scholar at Columbia in 2026-2028.
