This event is online only.

Please join the Harriman Institute and the Ukrainian Studies Program at New York University for the third session of the series “Ukraine in Focus,” featuring Kateryna Busol. Moderated by Anastasiia Vlasenko.

Ukraine in Focus is a public webinar series on war, society, and politics in contemporary Ukraine, co-sponsored by the Department of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University. Twelve sessions across the 2026–2027 academic year pair an invited speaker with a faculty moderator, followed by open audience questions. Sessions are scheduled at midday Eastern, evening in Kyiv, so that speakers based in Ukraine can take part live. Moderated by Anastasiia Vlasenko, Visiting Assistant Professor in Ukrainian Studies at NYU. See the full schedule.

Russia’s full-scale invasion has produced one of the most extensively documented sets of alleged international crimes in modern history — and one of the most ambitious efforts ever made to hold a state and its leaders to account while a war is still being fought. What does justice mean for the survivors of these crimes, and what can the law realistically deliver? International lawyer Kateryna Busol, who advises Ukrainian prosecutors and judges and leads the Ukraine Program of the International Center for Transitional Justice, will address these questions from the perspective of both legal practice and scholarship. She will examine how Ukraine and its partners are responding to atrocity crimes, where those efforts face their hardest legal and political obstacles, and how Ukraine’s experience may reshape international law itself.

Kateryna Busol is Head of Ukraine Program at the International Center for Transitional Justice and Associate Professor at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Busol is a Ukrainian international lawyer working on transitional justice, conflict-related sexual violence, crimes against cultural heritage, direct and public incitement to genocide, and reparations. She is also a British Academy Research Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. She advises Ukrainian prosecutors and judges on armed-conflict proceedings and has worked with UN Women, Global Rights Compliance, and Truth Hounds. She previously held fellowships at Chatham House and was a visiting professional at the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. She holds a Ph.D., LL.M., and LL.B. in international law from the Institute of International Relations of Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, an M.Sc. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Oxford, and an LL.M. in International Law from the University of Cambridge.

Please note: this session will address conflict-related sexual violence and other atrocity crimes.