File:Wikimania 2024 - Istanbul - Day 1 - Ukrainian wiki community during the war. From short-term stitches to long-term adaptation.webm

English: Russia’s war has had a profound impact on Ukrainian society and the Wikimedia community in Ukraine.

On the one hand, community members were directly affected by the invasion. Many people have had to flee their homes, some joined the Armed Forces or lost their job and source of income. On the other hand, reader interest on Wikipedia soared as Ukrainians were looking for reliable information in uncertain times.

In the first, most difficult months of the full-scale war the community successfully rose up to the challenge and kept Ukrainian Wikipedia up and running. Partly this was due to short-term stitches like fast-tracked decision making among the volunteer community (e.g. the practice of appointing temporary administrators under a simplified procedure).

Wikimedia Ukraine also proved resilient and has achieved remarkable results in the past two years, both keeping the vast majority of its pre-war programs and taking on new responsibilities like wartime community support. (See, for example, https://diff.wikimedia.org/2024/02/01/wikimedia-ukraines-work-in-2023-in-10-projects/).

But the invasion is in its third year and shows no signs of ending soon. Long-term sustainability is at risk as the war continues to wear on the community, for example with new people getting called up to serve in the army and many Ukrainians not being able to return from abroad.

Thus, the objectives of this session would be:

• Give brief context on how Russia’s war in Ukraine impacted the wiki community in its early days
• Reflect on which short-term strategies have proved effective (and which haven’t) and what other communities can learn from this experience
• Discuss the challenges of long-term adaptation to the war
• Invite participants to think about the role of the international community in helping Ukraine weather Russia’s war in the long haul