Why Kyiv Works: A Debrief with Denys Nazarenko

Last week, I shared my conversation with Victoria Itskovych, CIO for the City of Kyiv, about how Kyiv has continued to build and adapt under some pretty extraordinary circumstances.

Six Weeks Under Siege

Denys Nazarenko helped make that conversation happen. He’s a senior advisor to Victoria, and after we finished the interview, Denys and I wandered down to a nearby park to debrief.

What followed was a more informal conversation about some of the things sitting underneath Kyiv’s story: the relationship between the city and Ukraine’s national government, what good collaboration between different levels of government can actually look like, and why Kyiv has been able to make some of this work.

I’d recommend listening to the conversation with Victoria first. But if that one leaves you wanting to dig a little deeper, think of this as the after-hours addendum.

What changes when national and local governments see each other as partners rather than obstacles?