Beyond Conflict & St Botolph’s Church present: Ukraine: Voices from the Frontline

August 2026

Beyond Conflict and our partner St Botolph’s Church, Bishopsgate, London, are holding “An Evening with Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker Jay J.C. Buckley” on 3 September 2026 at 6.30pm. 

The event is free and open to all. Registration is via Luma. Jay will be talking about his documentary work from the frontlines of the Ukraine war, followed by a screening of his film.

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, Jay J.C. Buckley went to Ukraine to document the war. Over five years he embedded with frontline units, followed civilian medics into shelled cities, and sat with families holding ordinary life together under extraordinary pressure. Drawn from his works Voices from the Front and Beyond the Rubble, the result is raw, human documentary that refuses to reduce Ukraine to a geopolitical abstraction.

This evening puts the psychological cost of war at its centre: what it does to the soldiers, medics and civilians living it, and what it asks of those who bear witness. It sits squarely within Beyond Conflict UK’s mission of addressing the mental health consequences of conflict.

Our Moderator for the evening will be Maria Botcharova, Writer, Strategist and Co-Director, Medical Life Lines Ukraine. Maria Botcharova is a British-Ukrainian writer, strategist and volunteer who divides her time between London and Kyiv. She co-directs the non-profit Medical Life Lines Ukraine, which delivers medical support into the country, and has spent extended periods in Kyiv throughout the war, writing about everyday life under drone and missile attack.

Her writing on Ukraine has appeared in The Spectator, and she has written for the Guardian and BioNews. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience from UCL and studied at the University of Cambridge and is a Senior Strategy and Innovation Manager at Elsevier.

JOIN US: 

Date: Thursday, 3 September 2026
Time: 18:30 to 20:30
Venue: Church Hall, St Botolph-without-Bishopsgate, Bishopsgate, London EC2M 3TL
Format: Documentary screening, chaired conversation and audience Q&A
Admission: Free, all welcome. Registration via Luma (Beyond Conflict UK Events calendar)