Join Us at Czech Radio’s Truth in Motion Conference on Truth, Disinformation and Ukraine

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"I'm glad that for the third time – with past guests such as Timothy Snyder, Marci Shore and Sevgil Musaieva – we can welcome exclusive speakers from all over the world to Prague, moreover under the auspices of the Czech President," says Josef Pazderka, editor-in-chief of the Czech Radio Plus station and one of the main organizers. He adds:

"We will discuss the most pressing questions of our time: how important is quality and verified information for us in the era of Donald Trump? And how closely related to our European security is the complex search for peace in Ukraine?”

The third international conference of Czech Radio Plus titled Truth in Motion will explore the role of disinformation in contemporary society. As in previous years, the war in Ukraine, which has become not only a military but also an information battleground, will be the central topic of the conference, this year with a special focus on the role of the media in the digital era. The quality of information with which we in media and journalism work strongly influences the public debate and trust in democratic institutions. What can we do to ensure that we do not lose this trust?

Featured speakers will include former Ukrainian army commander and current Ukrainian ambassador to the UK Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Czech lawyer and former EU justice commissioner Věra Jourová, British author and analyst Peter Pomerantsev, investigative journalist Catherine Belton of the Financial Times, and journalist and historian Misha Glenny.

The programme will also include a live showcase of two select Czech Radio Plus podcasts. Voices of Memory, created in cooperation with the NGO Post Bellum, will offer a historical excursion into the propaganda of war. System Error: Slovakia will present concrete examples of the impact of disinformation on Slovak politics and society.

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Valerii Zaluzhnyi (1973) is a Ukrainian four-star general and diplomat who is currently serving as Ambassador of Ukraine to the United Kingdom. From July 2021 until February 2024, he served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and as a member of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine. He was previously the Commander of the North Operational Command, Chief of the Joint Operational Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and Commander of the 51st Guards Mechanized Brigade. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2022. He received praise for his skill at "adapting to a fast-changing battlefield.”

Catherine Belton (1973) is an international investigative reporter for The Washington Post, reporting primarily on Russia. From 2007 to 2013 she was the Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, and in 2016 as the newspaper’s legal correspondent. Belton has previously reported on Russia for the Moscow Times and BusinessWeek and served as an investigative correspondent for Reuters. In 2009, she was short-listed for the British Press Awards’ Business and Finance Journalist of the Year prize. Belton is the author of Putin's People, a New York Times Critics’ Book of 2020 and a book of the year for The Times, The Economist and the Financial Times. She lives in London.

Peter Pomerantsev (1977) is a Soviet-born British journalist, author and television producer. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics, where he co-directs the Arena program. He is the author of two successful books on Russian propaganda: Nothing is True and Everything is Possible and This is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality. His latest book, How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler, is about British WWII propagandist Sefton Delmer. As an expert on disinformation and information warfare, he has spoken before the security and foreign policy committees of both the British Parliament and the US Congress. He has also held seminars on these subjects for EU and NATO bodies. His articles have appeared in renowned media, such as The New York Times, Granta and The Atlantic. Prior to the 2024 American presidential elections, he co-hosted the podcast Autocracy in America with journalist Anne Applebaum.

Misha Glenny (1958) is an author and journalist with a wealth of expertise in the areas of cybersecurity, geopolitics, criminology and TV broadcasting. After his studies at the University of Bristol and Charles University in Prague, he became the Central European correspondent for The Guardian and later the BBC. He covered the 1989 revolutions and wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. During his time at the BBC, he received the Sony Gold Award for Outstanding Contribution to Broadcasting. He is also the author of three books about Central and Eastern Europe. His title McMafia: A Journey Through the Global Criminal Underworld and DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You was adapted into a major television series broadcast in the US, UK and the Czech Republic. In May 2022, he assumed his current role as rector at The Institute for Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna.

Věra Jourová (1964) is a Czech politician, businesswoman and lawyer. From 2014 to 2019 she served as the European Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality and from 2019 to 2024 she served as the Vice-President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency. Since January 2025, she is Pro-Rector for Human Resources Development and New Technologies at Charles University. In spring 2019, Time magazine ranked her among the 100 most influential people in the world. This was due to her involvement in establishing laws for the protection of personal data online. She has also held several political posts in the Czech government. In 2023, she was the second most influential woman in the Czech Republic according to the Czech version of Forbes magazine. In 2024, she was awarded the Women of Europe award.