On April 2, 2025, within the framework of the cross-cultural project “Black Menagerie Project”, a team from GIIM presented “Black Elephant” as a risk of destroying Ukrainian statehood in the context of the Russian-Ukrainian war. The speakers briefly reviewed the events from the signing of the Budapest Memorandum to the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in 2022, identifying the facts that contributed to the implementation of Russian aggression. A critical analysis of the position of the democratic world over the past three years revealed the indecision and restraint of these countries in helping Ukraine, which, not least, contributed to the transformation of the conflict into a protracted war of attrition. Finally, the risks of freezing the Russian-Ukrainian war and signing a peace agreement on the Kremlin’s terms were simulated, the main of which is the risk of destroying Ukrainian statehood.

The points of contact between the presentations on the topic of “Black Menagerie” from three different countries deserve special attention. The common vision of the image of the “Black Jellyfish” turned out to be. In the Ukrainian presentation, it was Russian propaganda, which made efforts to create a distorted reality at the international level. For the Ecuadorian speakers, the image of the “Black Jellyfish” was the problem of disinformation. And it was disinformation that was mentioned as a means of spreading populism in the presentation of the University of London. Awareness of a common vision of a certain problem at the international level is a good reason for conducting such cross-cultural projects. The project leaders from the GIIM, Ph.D., Assoc. Prof. Sukhovetska L. V. and Ph.D. Shlapakov O. S. express gratitude to the applicants who took part in the preparation of the presentation (Zalesova V. (gr. 411b), Teslyuk A. (gr. 400), Silkina V. (gr. 400), Shcherbakova K. (gr. 411b)) and acted as moderators in meaningful and passionate discussions (Psarev M. (gr. 541), Melnyk S. (gr. 504a), Peftits V. (gr. 241), Zalesova V. (gr. 411b), Teslyuk A. (gr. 400), Silkina V. (gr. 400), Shcherbakova K. (gr. 411b).