On 6 December, Yaroslava Babych, Lead Economist of the ISET Policy Institute, participated in an annual event Development Day hosted by the Stockholm Institute of Transition Economics (SITE) in Stockholm, Sweden. This year the event focused on how to maintain and organize support for Ukraine. Yaroslava Babych talked about the impacts the Russian aggression towards Ukraine will have in the neighboring countries, including Georgia.

The conference was introduced by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, Leader of the Belarusian Democratic Forces with a speck on the necessity of understanding the role of Belarus in Russia’s war against Ukraine. The importance of seeing the aggression as a war on the free and democratic world was further detailed throughout the day by several scholars with particular insights into the region, the Swedish Minister of Foreign Trade and International Development Cooperation (Johan Forssell), representatives for the Kyiv School of Economics, representatives from the European Union and others. The role of the EU in Ukraine’s future, the effects of the war on energy security in Europe, and the global impacts of the war were also discussed during the day.

Around 130 participants joined the conference from the corporate sector, public agencies, development agencies, academia, and the civil sector alike.