Ukraine Supporters Focus On Hope And Resilience As Us Relations Sour And War Carries On

The theme of "hope" was chosen long before this year's deterioration of Washington-Kyiv relations, but participants at an international Ukrainian studies conference said that hope is needed more than ever - not only in Ukraine but in the United States itself.

Religious leaders, scholars, artists and diplomats have been gathering at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana since Thursday for a three-day conference focused on "Revolutions of Hope: Resilience and Recovery in Ukraine."

But hope may be hard to summon at a conference that brought together supporters of Ukraine's resistance to Russia's ongoing military assaults . It came just a week after a disastrous Oval Office meeting in which U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy - followed by the U.S. pausing military aid and intelligence-sharing.

Those at the conference said it's important that Ukraine and its supporters maintain hope - not as a pie-in-the-sky sentiment but as a force that energizes their resistance.

"Today, our enemy is trying to make Ukraine a symbol of failure and ruin," said Taras Dobko, rector of Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv. "To live by hope in such a country means to be on a mission, to bring hope where it hurts, where things fall apart and where anxiety overwhelms."