Maria Romanenko
@rommari
Multi-award-winning journalist, activist, event host, and public speaker || from Ukraine 🇺🇦, now in Manchester 🇬🇧 || Instagram/Twitter: @rommari || 📩: maria@mariaromanenko.com
1/ You should know by now that if I’m going in front of a camera something important is happening! Lots of new #hownottofleeawar shows to announce, including our first #London event! Want to attend that one? Message me. Here’s a full list of upcoming shows:
Congratulations to @bevcraig.bsky.social, the new duly elected Mayor of Greater Manchester 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 #Manchester #gmelects #GreaterManchester
4/ We’re also delighted that @bbc5live.bsky.social presenter Chris Warburton will be joining us on stage for a live conversation after the talk. See you in a week, #Manchester. 🇺🇦 #HowNOTtoFleeaWar #Ukraine
2/ We’ve already presented the talk at the Welsh Parliament and at cultural and educational venues across the UK. Now we’re finally bringing it home to Manchester.
1/ MANCHESTER, are you ready??? One week to go until Jez and I bring #HowNOTtoFleeaWar to Aviva Studios as the centrepiece event of #RefugeeWeek in #Manchester. All 200 tickets have now been snapped up (someone pinch me), but walk-ins are welcome, subject to available space.
When I bought this scarf, I hoped there would be a time and place to wear it. And look — now is the time, and this is the place! 💙💛 #EnglandvsUkraine #Ukraine #HillDickinson
3/5 …journalism and #volunteering have gone hand-in-hand: telling stories that matter, supporting people through difficult times, and helping nations understand each other. Delighted to reflect on this journey for the June issue of We ROAR Magazine.
What the hell has happened — we’ve sold out Aviva Studios in #Manchester!!! All 200 tickets gone just like that, with 2 weeks to go till showtime! This is incredible. But fret not, there’s still a way to get involved, so read on 👇🏻
1/ April was probably the busiest month of my life. It turned out that almost all of May was needed to recover from it 😬 But I’m finally feeling like myself again, and I’m ready to share what’s coming up this month with my and my partner Jez’s How NOT to Flee a War talk tour 👇
Exactly 29 years ago, on May 24, 1997, the very first McDonald’s in #Ukraine opened its doors in #Kyiv. In the early hours of May 24, 2026, that same #McDonalds was destroyed in a #Russia n attack. One of the countless places shattered overnight in my hometown.
1/ On Sunday, my partner Jez and I spoke at the #LewesSpeakersFestival near Brighton. We were invited to close the entire festival, following speakers such as Liam Byrne MP & Johnny Teague PhD. Which still feels slightly surreal, considering they are all serious people with proper books published!
BIG UPDATEEEE, south of England folk: I am nearly in #Lewes as I am headlining #LewesSpeakersFestival tomorrow. May 10, Sunday, 6:50pm. Don’t tell me you’ve got better things to do than to listen to a story that will make you laugh, cry, and question everything you know about…
Before 24 February 2022, I never imagined I would be speaking on international media, addressing parliaments, or taking part in exhibitions and books. This was never an ambition. I would trade it all for a peaceful life in a peaceful Kyiv.
When I am given visibility, I use it to speak about those who no longer can. About Maks Levin, executed for being a journalist. About Viktoriia Roshchyna, whose main wish was to report the truth — and who was tortured to death by Russia.
“Memory is a verb” is a phrase I first heard in a speech given by a 16-year-old Ukrainian girl Anna. It stuck with me — because memory doesn’t live on its own. We have to do something for it. 🧵⬇️
What #Ukraine actually needs for peace. Talks only work when they’re backed by pressure, enforcement, and real security — not just announcements. @bbc5live.bsky.social | Part 2 of 2
Talks don’t work when one side is negotiating under pressure and the other feels it can wait. Peace only works when #Ukraine goes into negotiations from a position of strength — and that’s not what’s happening right now. Part 1 of today’s @bbc5live.bsky.social interview.
4/ Want to explore #Manchester and support #Ukraine in a direct, meaningful way? 📩 Message me. Let’s walk with purpose. #SupportUkraine #StandWithUkraine️ #CharityTour
3/ I run these Ukrainian-language tours on a charity-only basis. I don’t keep a penny. You donate (min. £50 per group) — I guide you through #Manchester — and all the money goes directly to Ukrainian orgs like UNBROKEN, Lifeline Ukraine, & Taras Chuchman’s Invincible Defenders
🧵1/ Last month, I led a private walking tour of #Manchester. It wasn’t just about history — it was about helping #Ukraine. Together with Europia charity and one participant’s extra donation, we raised £140 to support the UNBROKEN rehabilitation centre in #Lviv.
#Ukraine is freezing. –15°C outside. Around 5°C inside apartments. People move from café to café just to warm up. At home, there’s no heat, no power, no way to live normally.
On @bbc5live.bsky.social last night: Intent is welcome — but without guarantees, it doesn’t equal security. #Ukraine needs weapons, real sanctions, and for #Russia to stop being treated as a good-faith actor.
Just before Christmas, I spoke on @lbc.co.uk about how #Ukraine was heading into the holidays — with some relief, but also fear and no illusion that the war would pause for #Christmas. Half-measures don’t end wars. They make them drag on.
Ukrainians spend 16 hrs without electricity every day and have their friends & family killed. But they don’t want to live under r**sian occupation as that would invite more violence. Europe needs to understand that. My @bbc5live.bsky.social int w @connorphillips.bsky.social #ukraine #Trump #russia
Ukrainians don’t want to hear yet another stream of encouraging words. We want more weapons, sanctions on russia, and for russia to go home. My interview on @bbc5live.bsky.social with @connorphillips.bsky.social last night. #Ukraine #russia #trump
Yesterday on @bbc5live.bsky.social with @connorphillips.bsky.social on the #Trump merry-go-round #Ukraine is tired of finding itself on. Every time badly designed, unworkable ‘solutions’ designed to bully us into capitulation. A ‘peace plan’ so bad it might as well have been written in #moscow.
