TED branch at Ukrainian Catholic University closes after TED HQ refuses to publish talk by Ukrainian soldier

A local branch of TED at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) has announced that it is terminating its operations.

The decision was taken when TED’s headquarters in the US refused to publish a talk given by Maksym Osadchuk, a Ukrainian soldier, historian and UCU graduate student, at a conference in the autumn of 2023, TEDxUCU said in a statement.

TED’s headquarters said the talk contained "inflammatory ‘us vs them’ statements" about the war in Ukraine. For instance, Osadchuk said that "russians, as their great event, are trying to appropriate the joint victory over German fascism, but as always, they are stealing... However, there is nothing new here. russians are being russians".

The organisation also mentioned concerns about the phrase "the suffocating embrace of the Russian world". [The Russian world is a concept and political doctrine usually defined as the sphere of Russia’s military, political and cultural influence – ed.]

The TED headquarters explained that it strives to remain neutral and avoid polarisation.

"The platforms for showcasing these ideas exist, but we must maintain that the TEDx stage is not a space for polarising or otherwise inflammatory discussions of what makes a conflict an ‘opportunity’ for a particular country while lambasting entire populations of a different country," the TED headquarters said.

TEDxUCU strongly disagrees with this interpretation. The organisers stressed that the facts mentioned by Osadchuk are obvious and generally recognised – specifically Russia’s unprecedented violation of international law, which has been documented in four UN General Assembly resolutions.

The TEDxUCU team explained that the phrase "Russian world" can be found in works by American historians and writers. Moreover, Russians themselves frequently use this term as an antithesis to the Western world.

TEDxUCU emphasised that during a war, the rhetoric of "us vs them" describes the objective situation, not hate speech.

The local Ukrainian branch believes that TED has not published the video because it believes it must remain neutral and hear both sides, etc.

"But we do not accept this. First and foremost, we fully share the statements expressed by our speaker," the TEDxUCU statement says.

TEDxUCU has therefore decided to terminate its activity.

"We will fondly remember our experience with TEDxUCU from 2017 to winter 2023. To be continued," the statement says.

Previously: In May, a history encyclopaedia was published in the UK which presented the history of Ukraine in adherence to the Russian narrative.

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