Description

Domestic spaces and resistance on the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine

Event co-organised by:       
Ukraine+ Knowledge Center of the EuroEast Platform, Ghent University       
Free University of Brussels (ULB)       
 

Time & Place:       
Wednesday, 11 February 2026, 15:00-16:30 (CET)       
Room 1.11, Campus UFO, T2, Ghent University, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, Ghent  
If you wish to follow the event online, you can use the following link on MS Teams.   
 

Event description:

Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014 and has since been examined from multiple angles. However, various proliferating forms of Ukrainian resistance on the Russian-occupied territories remain underexplored. Drawing on their recent research and open sources, the speakers will discuss realities of the Russian occupation regime in the affected areas of Ukraine, such as illegal home seizures, and zoom in on various aspects of the Ukrainian resistance movement, including civil protest and armed partisan action.

Speakers:       
Prof. Dr. Yuriy Matsiyevsky, Professor of Political Science, National University of Ostroh Academy, Ukraine. 
Yuriy Matsiyevsky is Professor of Political Science and the head of the Center for Political Research at Ostroh Academy National University, Ukraine. His research interests include Ukrainian politics, political regimes, democratization and informal institutions in politics. Yuriy has recently held several non-residential scholar positions including at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy (2024-2025) and at the IERES, GWU (2022-2023). He is a member of Midwest Political Science Association, PONARS Eurasia Policy Network, Fulbright Alumni Association, and Ukrainian Political Science Association.  

In his presentation, Yuriy will discuss various forms of Ukrainian resistance, including civil protests and armed partisan actions, on the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine.      
 

Dr. Guénola Inizan, Associate Researcher, Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab'URBA), Paris, France. 
Guénola Inizan is a geographer specializing in urban and social geography and associate researcher at the Laboratory of Urbanism (Lab'URBA) in Paris, and at the Environment, City, Society Research Center in Lyon, France. Her research focuses on questions of home and dwelling, residential trajectories, and urban planning policies. Guénola earned her PhD in Geography and Urban Planning from Lumière Lyon 2 University in 2024. Since then, she has held research fellowships in the Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography in Leipzig (Germany), the Department of Geography of the University of Łódź (Poland), and the Lviv Center for Urban History (Ukraine). 

In her presentation, Guénola will speak about housing confiscation in the Russian-occupied territories of Ukraine, as well as zoom in on Ukrainian resistance to this policy.

+ concluding remarks by Ms. Iryna Dumych, information coordinator for NGO “Crimea SOS”.
 

Moderation by:       
Dr. Dmytro Panchuk, member of Ukraine+ Knowledge Centre, postdoctoral researcher, Department of Public Governance and Management, Ghent University.

There will be opportunities to ask questions to the speakers.

Students, professors, and a broader audience are welcome!