Mediation Without Borders Stop No. 22 🇺🇦 Ukraine with Nataliia Kozachuk

Mediation Without Borders 🌍

Stop No. 22 in 🇺🇦 Ukraine with Nataliia Kozachuk

From Solidarity to Coexistence: Nataliia Kozachuk on Mediation, 🇨🇿Czech-Ukrainian🇺🇦 Relations, and the Search for Common Ground

When people hear the word “conflict,” most imagine an argument, a court case, or an open dispute. Ukrainian mediator Nataliia Kozachuk sees conflict differently. In an interview for Mediation Without Borders, she says that conflict is not necessarily a problem, but a phenomenon—something that needs to be understood before it escalates into a fight.

Nataliia started out as a lawyer. But it was the law that showed her that courts often only address the consequences. So she began focusing on family mediation, divorce, and co-parenting. After 2022, her work changed significantly when she began working in humanitarian aid on intercultural mediation and the topic of social cohesion.

A major topic of the conversation was Czech-Ukrainian coexistence. Nataliia points out that Czechs and Ukrainians in our country often do not live in opposition to one another, but rather side by side. They encounter each other at work, at school, at government offices, or in public services. They are aware of one another. But they do not always have the space to truly meet as people.

This is precisely where mediation can have broader significance. It can help create a safe space for dialogue between communities that share the same place and time, yet sometimes live in parallel worlds.

In the interview, we also touched on why people often don’t seek mediation in time. People aren’t interested in the method, but in the result. They need to know that “mediation” or “assisted negotiation” can bring them calmer communication, the chance to be heard, reduced tension, or a safer way to talk about difficult things.

The technical section on separate meetings in mediation and the difference between caucus and shuttle mediation was also interesting. Of course, we also talked about AI as a tool of the future and agreed that it certainly won’t replace us mediators in the near future.

The interview with Natalia Kozachuk shows that mediation isn’t just a technique, but also a safe space where we can understand tensions in society before they turn into conflict.

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Watch the whole interview on your favorite streaming platform: