Svitlana Romanko is the Executive Director of Razom We Stand, a Ukrainian climate justice organization focused on ending fossil-fueled conflicts and climate chaos and driving the clean energy revolution in Ukraine and globally.
Before initiating Razom We Stand when Russia’s full-scale invasion began, Svitlana was for several years the 350.org leader for Eastern Europe, Caucusus, and Central Asia. The communications director for Razom We Stand is Jason Kirkpatrick, now based in Berlin but in the 1990s he was a Green Party city councilor and vice-mayor in Arcata, California, which had the first Green majority city council in the U.S.
I have been supporting Razom We Stand’s push for fossil fuel sanctions on Russia since shortly after the full-scale invasion began. I supported and marched with Svitlana in the Climate March in New York City on September 17, 2023, which I reported on here. Svitlana and Jason were thrown out of the COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt in November 2022 after confronting the Russian delegation, which can be seen in this Democracy Now! report.
I interviewed Svitlana on November 6, the day after Donald Trump won the American presidential election. She appealed to Americans to stay active and push to strengthen fossil fuel sanctions against Russia’s imperialist petro-state and to support Ukrainians in their struggle to recover the land that the Russian military occupies. She also called on Americans to protest the U.S. government policy of pushing Ukraine to build new nuclear power plants and instead support rebuilding Ukraine around decentralized renewable energy. She also discussed the need to stop Russia’s oil and gas development in the Arctic, which would be a carbon bomb on the planet.
