American Russian-speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights: Reclaiming Diaspora From Autocratic Influences and Fostering Peace Dialogue Through Ukrainian-Russian Roundtables

The American Russian-speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights (ARA) is seeking to have refugees and exiles from war and repression included in the US foreign policy debates on their countries of origin. ARA has been the first community organization in the Russian-speaking diaspora to reject the Kremlin’s aggression against democratic Ukraine starting from 2014 and to push back against attempts to manipulate our diasporas through disinformation, division, and hate speech.

In response to these attempts, 10 years ago ARA launched a series of roundtables to bring the Ukrainian American and the Russian American diasporas together in opposing aggression and in defense of democracy and human rights, including minority rights in our native countries. In 2023, we maintained this dialogue, focused on the pursuit of a just peace for Ukraine, accountability for war crimes, and freedom for the people in Russia as well as support for refugees and asylum seekers from the war zone. The list of speakers and discussants in the roundtables held in 2023 included US State Department representatives, the Executive Director of Transparency International US, Ukrainian former national and local legislators and human rights activists, Russian-American pro-Ukraine activists and providers of humanitarian aid, American humanitarian workers in Ukraine, and many others. These roundtables provided key information on the actual situation in Ukraine, including from first-hand sources on the ground, and on the strength of opposition to the Kremlin’s aggression among the Russian diaspora.

The material provided contributed to countering disinformation in the Russian-American community and beyond. The roundtables’ format provided for interactive and engaging dialogues juxtaposing different national and political perspectives. Through its multiple online media channels reaching a total of over 10,000 readers, the American Russian-speaking Association for Civil & Human Rights counters disinformation on a regular basis.