The UIL Dinner Club: Great Conversation for a Good Cause
Date and time:
Thursday 28 May, 2026
19:00 - 22:00
Location:
Tatar Bunar: cuisine inspired by Ukraine
152 Curtain Road
London
EC2A 3AT
Join us for an exclusive evening with our guest of honour, writer and security expert Edward Lucas.
Enjoy an evening of meaningful conversation in an intimate setting, with delicious food and wine inspired by Ukrainian cuisine (Bessarabian comfort food) — all while supporting the vital work of the UIL. This event is part of the UIL Dinner Club series, a programme of fundraising dinners that bring together supporters of Ukrainian culture and scholarship.
You'll have the unique opportunity to speak in an informal atmosphere with Edward Lucas about energy, cyber-security, espionage, information warfare, Russian foreign and defence policy, and Ukrainian resistance.
What to expect:
No prior knowledge of Ukrainian history or politics is required — just a genuine curiosity about Ukraine and a desire to engage in thoughtful discussion. You don’t need to know any of the other guests; simply come ready to share the evening with like-minded people and perhaps make new friends.
Spaces are very limited, so we strongly recommend early booking to avoid disappointment.
Guest of Honour
Edward Lucas
Edward Lucas is a writer and security expert. His expertise includes energy, cyber-security, espionage, information warfare and Russian foreign and defence policy. He is the founder and director of the Baltic International Security Centre, a new think tank.
Formerly a senior editor at The Economist, the world’s foremost newsweekly, he was for many years a senior (non-resident) adviser at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), a thinktank based in Washington, DC. He writes a regular column in the London Times, and also for Foreign Policy. In 1992, he co-founded an English-language weekly in Tallinn, Estonia: The Baltic Independent.
He was based as a foreign correspondent in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Moscow and the Baltic states for many years. In 2008, he wrote the The New Cold War, a prescient account of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, followed in 2011 by Deception, an investigative account of east-west espionage. He has written three other books. An experienced broadcaster, he is a regular contributor to the BBC’s Today and Newsnight programmes, and to NPR, CNN and Sky News.
Edward Lucas has lectured at Harvard, Oxford, Cambridge and other leading universities. He is the recipient of numerous awards. He was also the first foreigner to receive an Estonian electronic identity card, and received the first Lithuanian visa in 1991. He was deported from the Soviet Union, arrested, beaten up, interrogated and spied on by communist secret police agents behind the Iron Curtain. He studied economics at the London School of Economics and speaks five languages — German, Russian, Polish, Czech and Lithuanian.
