In the studio this week: six female ambassadors plus a Ukrainian representative. Between them, decades of global diplomatic experience. We discuss how to keep a continent’s consciousness alive when the news cycle is relentless and fatigue sets in.
My guests:
Inna Yaremenko - Representative of the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg/Vice President at LUkraine
These ladies have front-line diplomatic experience spanning Russia, Kosovo, the Balkans, the Middle East, and beyond. Several have lived in Russia, speak Russian and studied Russian history. Heike met Vladimir Putin; Barbara was in Washington D.C. on the day Crimea was invaded; Carin was studying Soviet history when the wall came down.
“When a diplomat stops talking, you end up in a war. The talking needs to restart – and the circumstances for that have to be right.”Ambassador Carin Lobbezoo, Netherlands
The creation of the ‘Advocacy Coalition’ was borne out of a desire to keep the support for Ukraine from eroding quietly in the background while other crises clamour for attention.
Ambassador Joanne Oliver of the UK underlined the strength of a coalition in that one embassy putting is not putting its head above the parapet, but shows a unified front which is harder to ignore and harder to exhaust. “Ukraine is on the front line of Europe. We have to do it together.”
The Advocacy Coalition – Defending Our Future Now launched in early 2026 by LUkraine asbl together with ten partner embassies and the support of the European Commission. It is a year-long programme of monthly public events, a digital advocacy platform of personal testimonies, and a photo exhibition: “How to Destroy a Country” co-hosted by the Czech Embassy.
The founding embassies are Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom. Spain has since joined and the coalition is open both in Luxembourg and the idea is open to be replicated across more countries.The path to peace is long and hard. Ambassador Peitsch, who served as Consul General in St. Petersburg and headed the German Embassy’s Economic and Scientific Affairs Department in Moscow, described the slow architecture of mediation: how a trusted broker must talk to each side separately first, map the areas of potential compromise, set aside the intractable issues, and build a minimum of trust before parties can even share a room.“Each of us can do something. In Ukraine we say: if you do nothing, evil will prevail. This project is solidarity in action not just in slogans”
Inn Yaremenko, Vice President of Ukraine, Luxembourg
Ambassador Lobbezoo, who studied Russian history at Leiden and Russian & Soviet Studies in London when the Berlin Wall still stood (then fell during her second masters), offered the historian’s caveat: history doesn’t repeat itself exactly, but long lines of behaviour do, and many of those lines in Russia’s current conduct trace back to patterns she began reading about in the 1980s.
Ambassador Jean McDonald from Ireland spoke movingly about cultural diplomacy as public diplomacy: the harp on the Irish euro coin, the way a poem by Moya Cannon can open a space for dialogue that policy briefings cannot.
Ambassador Karpetová, who grew up in Czechoslovakia during Soviet occupation and watched her country’s invasion repeat its patterns in Ukraine, described how she asked herself what Pierre Werner, the Luxembourgish statesman whose family villa houses the Czech Embassy, would have done. The answer was action: look around, count the resources, multiply strength through communication.
The question of women in diplomacy ran through the conversation. All six ambassadors agreed, carefully, and without reducing it to a binary, that women’s presence at peace tables is structural: as Jean McDonald noted, women are 50% of the population, and any peace settlement that excludes them is unlikely to be sustainable.“Female diplomats tend to focus on getting things done. After 38 years in the German foreign service, that is my consistent experience.”
Ambassador Heike Peitsch, Germany
Ambassador Lobbezoo watched women with excellent ideas locked out of the Kosovo-Serbia negotiations despite being ready and willing. Inna Yaremenko noted that there are currently no women at all in the Ukraine-Russia peace negotiation process, a gap flagged publicly by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, keynote speaker at the Coalition’s opening event. The show ended with a clear call to listeners: exercise your consciousness like a muscle. Be curious. Seek to understand. And do not flinch.
“Women need to be at the table, need to be part of the discussions, and need to be part of the solutions. That is a really fundamental point.”Ambassador Jean McDonald, Ireland
Advocacy Coalition: Defending Our Future Now
A year-long initiative by LUkraine and partner embassies in Luxembourg, supported by the European Commission, featuring monthly public events, a live digital advocacy platform, and the “How to Destroy a Country” photo exhibition. The coalition is open to new members.
To join, contribute a testimony, or attend upcoming events, contact inna.yaremenko@ukrainians.lu
