 Hello, my name is Anton, I am an editor on Ukrainian Wikipedia, I am a program coordinator at Wikimedia Ukraine and today I will talk about how Russia's war in Ukraine has impacted the Ukrainian Wikimedia community. So we will have a presentation, I will do a presentation with a general overview of the Russian war in Ukraine, for those who perhaps may not have thought it closely, but the bulk of my presentation will be devoted to the impact of the war on the Ukrainian Wikipedia community. It will go for about 15 minutes, so not 10, but about 15 minutes. Then we will take a look at four pre-recorded videos from few different Ukrainian Wikimedians who have been affected by the war, who have joined the army, have been volunteering, have been displaced by the war. Those videos were specifically recorded for Wikimedia participants and we will take a look at them. And then if you have any questions, there is some space at the end for that and you will be able to and I will review the questions you can write in the feed-up chat. But just as a reminder, there is some luck between, there is some luck, so it's better to write your questions beforehand and I will review them at the end of the presentation. So let's start and let's start with a brief background again for just for people who might not have thought it closely. February the 24th of this year became perhaps the most memorable date for millions of Ukrainians, for the lives of millions of Ukrainians including myself. It is the date when Russia started a military aggression against Ukraine when Russia started its military invasion. It is not the first instance of Russian military aggression against Ukraine, but it is the beginning of the big war which has appended the lives of all Ukrainians and around a third of the population has been displaced either within Ukraine or have been forced to flee the country. And according to the estimates by the Ukrainian government close to 30,000 people, 30,000 civilians were killed in the war and undisclosed number of Ukrainian military personnel. Ukraine's economy has been decimated by the war, but importantly this war has had a global impact as well. So for example, just as one example, the blockade has been threatening global food security with the effects in many countries in Africa and elsewhere. But again, I want to talk not so much about the war itself as more about the impact on the Wikimedia community in Ukraine and like millions of other Ukrainians, dozens of volunteers from the Ukrainian Viki community have had to flee their homes to try to save themselves in the face of the war. Thankfully, many people have already been able to return, especially as the Kiev region, as Northern Ukraine, had been liberated and myself included, I also was able to return to Kiev. But still many people are not able to return because first of all, thousand Eastern Ukraine is still either occupied or placed to active military action. And other parts of Ukraine, while safer, are still not fully safe, are still under the risk of constant missile attacks. There are multiple air raids every day, so many people are not able to return, especially parents with young children. That concerns not only that concerns all Ukrainians, but also people from the Wikimedia community. So many people have joined the army and are now serving in various roles in active combat or serving in various logistical and other supplementary roles in the army. At least one Wikimedean unfortunately died in combat. And among civilian Wikimedeans, we have not been able to establish contact with at least one person from Mariupol, which has been the site of perhaps, which has been the cities that perhaps suffered the most from the war. And we fear that something terrible might have happened to him, but we have not been able to establish contact. Here is a photo of Makolak Rauchenko, who is the Wikimedean who died in combat while defending the Kiev region, defending Kiev in early March. But apart from honoring him and other people, I also wanted to take a statistical look at the impact on the community in terms of numbers. And what we see is that at the beginning of the war, a user activity decreased sharply on the Ukrainian Wikipedia, so we had a 40% decrease year over year in terms of user activity because people were just not being able to have enough technical possibilities and enough time and enough opportunities to edit Wikipedia. Fortunately, the user activity has more or less bounced back as the life became more stable for people, but still a lot of people are not able to fully return to volunteering in the Wikimedia ecosystem. It is a small sample, but in June two thirds of Wikimedia Ukraine members in a survey reported that their activity had decreased either considerably or somewhat since the out-inversion, and the most widespread reasons as you might have guessed are a lack of time. So, for example, new volunteer or caretaker and responsibilities. It's also technical inability, so literally no internet and no possibility to edit Wikipedia while in a bomb shelter. And also psychological stress has played a big role. Here is an example of Ukrainian Wikimedians meeting online during the war, trying to support themselves psychologically. And in terms of support, there has been a lot of support to community members affected, fortunately. And we have been working on that and we are also really grateful to everyone who has joined. So, there's been financial support, food and hygiene packages sent to community members in need. Wikimedia Ukraine and the local community more broadly has been working on that. There's been a support from, a support with real vocation and accommodation outside Ukraine. So, multiple affiliates from Europe and even from outside of Europe also have reached out and offered help and multiple community members as well. It's been also really helpful and we are grateful for that. And the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Ukraine and many other organizations and people provided information support, useful materials and so on. But outside of the impact on the community itself, I also wanted to take a look at the impact on Wikimedia leadership, the impact of the war on Wikimedia leadership. And here we see a complete opposite picture. Here we see that while the activity of Wikimedia volunteers has dropped because of the war, leadership has grown and it grew considerably because people have been in need of verified information, people have been in need of information in general, trying to understand how the war impacts their lives, trying to understand everything from different weapons systems to different societal phenomena. And April became the second highest month in the history of Ukrainian Wikipedia in terms of the number of user views of Wikipedia articles. And obviously, predictably, the topic of the war has been the most popular. The article about Russia's invasion itself has gathered around 3 million views in less than half a year, which is an absolute record for Ukrainian Wikipedia. It's in Ukrainian, but here is a list of the most popular articles on Ukrainian Wikipedia during the war. And yes, the topics of the war are, people have been really in need of information on the topic of the war and they have been determined to Wikipedia to get it. There are hundreds and quite thousands of articles only on Ukrainian Wikipedia covering everything from major, major battles to war memes. And also, of course, it's only the Ukrainian edition I'm talking about. There is extensive coverage in other one, which editions as well. On Thursday, during the first day of Wikimania, we had a session devoted to the efforts of covering Ukrainian cultural heritage, which is under threat. The session called Glarmin Crisis, you can go back and rewatch that. And also to briefly say that there was a semantic week, which later turned to a permanent project in Ukrainian Wikipedia to coordinate the efforts to cover the war, since there has been such a huge need, such a huge need by readers in this, in reading about this topic. As I am wrapping up my presentation, here are some helpful links where you can learn more. So today, I just, I was talking about some general trends, but it is more instructive and more interesting to read personal stories of people who have been affected. And I sent a link to the Facebook chat. And it is also in the second point of this slide, stories of Ukrainian Wikimedia during the war. You can open this link and read some personal stories. Most of them are available in English and have been published in the signed post or on Diff. There is also the general portal with helpful links devoted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which you can check. And there are many sources providing general coverage of Ukraine in English, including the cave independent, which is the largest English language outward about Ukraine. And finally, how you can help. There are many ways to help Ukraine in its fight for democracy and freedom. The first option is just to speak out and to voice your support on different levels. If you can, you can, if you can donate money, that is also a good way to help. And there are many, many places where the money would be helpful. And also you can help improve the coverage of Ukraine on Wikipedia. So for example, in February and March, we had Ukrainian cultural diplomacy months on Wikipedia, which only accidentally coincided with the war but which attracted a lot of attention and thousands of articles about Ukrainian culture were created. But there is no limit and there are still topics in need of coverage. So you can join and help us improve the coverage of Ukraine on Wikipedia, on different language editions. And now we will take a look at some, at a few videos from people who have recorded the greetings and their stories for Wikimania participants. Hi, I'm Renvoy and I'm editing Wikimedia projects for eight years now, mainly focusing on Ukrainian Wikis and CrossFit patrolling. Despite not living in Ukraine for a couple of years now, a war in my home country massively influenced my work on Wikimedia projects. For example, right after Russian invasion, I was quickly appointed as temporary admin on Ukrainian Wikipedia as some of our administrators were either drawn to army or had to escape the war. Also happened to be awake early in the morning on 24th of February, I created the article on Russian invasion on Ukrainian Wikipedia. Only in nightmares could I imagine creating page on a war that was declared against my country. Also, I was Wikimedia Ukrainian employee at that time, responsible for Ukrainian cultural diplomacy month, which suddenly became so much more important for whole Wikimedia community. In real life, I joined my fellow expatriates providing help for for refugees from Ukraine and became part of some of informational campaigns. I want to thank Wikimedians from all around the globe for words and proposals of support that I received in the last six months. I hope we will find ourselves in a better world soon. But for now take care. My name is Olga. I'm from Kiev, Ukraine. I'm a press secretary and a board member at Wikimedia Ukraine. Since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion, I haven't edited any article at Wikipedia at all. I still cannot read books, but lately I started to watch some old soap operas so hope I will be back soon. Of course, I'm involved in meetings with the other board members. Organizational committee of Wikilabs monuments in Ukraine do some communication activities with the Wikimedia Ukraine comm team. There was few good news lately. Odessa city in the south of Ukraine in English Wikipedia finally received its correct spelling with one S and also Ukrainian Wikipedia catches up the Arabic Wikipedia and I must say I'm very proud of all Ukrainian Wikipedians and actually for all Wiki contributors who helped to cover the correct information about the war. I want to say thank you all for this. A few weeks after the full-scale invasion started I moved to Germany with my four years old son. I met many great people on my way and I will be grateful for them forever. I want to say thanks to Romanians, Poles, Germans, people from the country that I crossed on my way. Actually to all the people from different countries and representatives of different nations for your support and solidarity. My job connected to the help of people affected by the war in Ukraine now and I'm glad that I have the opportunities to be helpful to my country and my compatriots right now in this hard time. Now I'm in Kiev at my home. The air attack right system yesterday worked a few times a day and today there were no sirens but it's not the evening though. I come for a few weeks to meet my family, friends and just visit some places in the capital of great people in Kiev. I wish all of you never feel the war time, never heard the sirens, never made the hardest decisions in your life in one day and my sincere condolences for those who have already experienced this on its own. Stay safe, contribute to VIKIP projects, thank you all for your support and let's spread the free knowledge and try to make this world a bit better place to live in. Hello guys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Oleg Anders, I'm a VIKIP editor. Also I'm a PhD in political science and now I serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine since February 2022. So one year ago I took part in VIKIP last year's photo contest and I won some of the prizes for this contest because I uploaded a lot of unique photos from the protest against the destruction of natural reserves in Ukraine. So I'm very proud of being involved in this photo contest one year ago. Now after the after the start of full-scale war in Ukraine I serve for five months in Armed Forces of Ukraine as an officer. Also I would like to thank all the VIKIP editors for the invitation to your event. Also last five months I took part not only in the Russo-Ukrainian war but in some other activities like a creation of my fifth photo exhibition which took place in Kiev in so-called Mala Opera. So this photo exhibition was devoted to the Russo-Ukrainian war and all that I've seen in this war. Also I helped to to transport and to move at least 40 stray cats from Kiev Zoo from the shelter which is called Cat Town. I was one of the co-founders of NGO that helps stray cats in Kiev Zoo to survive and define new home. So these cats in the middle of the war in March of this year were moved to Poland and after then Centaur's NGO helped to find new homes for these cats. So this is my main activities last five months and I hope Ukraine will win this war. I hope I will see all your friends all your friends in real life in one year in the next meeting of Miki Beta. So thanks a lot. See you. Hi my name is Irina. I am an art historian and researcher and in January I joined Wikimedia Ukraine as a project manager for the Viki Loves Earth International Photo Contest. So despite Russian troops gathering on the Ukrainian borders I had quite exciting plans for my spring and summer. I was planning to go to Harkiv to visit my mother who moved there last year and I wanted to go to Marigold pool where the cultural life was just booming and I wanted to organize an art exhibition in my home city of separation. But on the 24th of February I realized that this privilege to be able to build plans for a future and when I heard first explosions I was determined to stay in Kiev. In two days I and my friends went to Lviv and later in spring I moved to the UK. I so yeah here I am in London recording this video and building my life from scratch. I go to the protests a few times a week. I recently had my first pride with the Ukrainian community in Brighton city and I've just actually came back from another protest. Today we shared down in street with the free Palestine movement. I'm going for another protest on Friday and honestly I'm not gonna stop. As you may know it's not possible to take fights from Ukraine anymore and obviously you cannot take fight from abroad to Ukraine. So this is my dream and this is my plan to take first fight from London to give a capital of independent Ukraine. So see you there and stand with Ukraine. Okay thank you for watching. I think that with we are running out of time and we started a bit later so if you have if there is a couple of questions I can take them but I do not see questions so far in the etherbed. So if you have any questions further if you have any questions after this call after this session you can reach out to me directly. I will upload the slides to the to wikimedia comments and we'll share the slides. We'll share the slides with wikimedia participants. You will be able to make use of the links short in the presentation and thank you for joining the session. See you at wikimedia.