Representatives of the international media visited Sumy National Agrarian University to explore life in Sumy region today and to have a dialogue with students, academic staff, and young scientists. The panel discussion took place on July 31, 2025, and covered a number of important topics. One of them was the activities of the educational institution during the period of adaptation to the consequences of the July 14 arrival in the academic buildings.
New Zealand reporter Tom Match, who writes articles for The Daily Beast, openDemocracy, Der Spiegel, POLITICO, the BBC, and Channel 4, among others, about the events of the Russian-Ukrainian war for a foreign audience to remind the world that this horror is still ongoing and should definitely not be forgotten.
One of Tom’s most important works is his book The Dogs of Mariupol, which documents a number of war crimes that Russia committed against the Ukrainian people on the territory of our country and beyond. The copy also contains a section on the Sumy region. It describes the events that unfolded in Okhtyrka in February 2022.
Before meeting with the audience, the reporters, Tom and his Canadian colleague Neil Horan, had the opportunity to inspect the educational buildings damaged by Russian Italmazes and how, despite the past events, the university community is united to restore and maintain the condition of buildings and plantings. The guests were impressed by the amount of effort that has been put in to bring the university as close to its former appearance as possible in such a relatively short time.
The panel discussion was held in two languages – Ukrainian and English. The staff of the Media Center of Sumy NAU did everything possible to ensure that the invited speakers and the audience could understand each other in the context of the conversation, so they provided the event with moderation and simultaneous translation of the reports.
The uniqueness of The Dogs of Mariupol can be determined not only by the description of the events of the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine with a detailed description of the crimes of the terrorist country, but also by the fact that the author, along with his colleagues, conducted reports from the affected cities on their own, staying in our country from the first days of the war. In particular, he stayed in the occupation of Izium for several days, helped Ukrainian services to rescue victims of flooding in the Kherson region, and risked his life to report from Sudzha.
The event was an important event for everyone: the university community was inspired to continue working on the development of Sumy region, in particular, SNAU, and our distinguished guests shared their own experiences and took notes on the audience’s responses for further journalistic research.
We are sincerely grateful to all those involved in the event, as well as to our distinguished guests for visiting the SNAU! This panel discussion is just the beginning of our cooperation, and an important step towards promoting the dissemination of information about Sumy region during the war.
