Forum offered online and in the Hinckley Institute caucus room - Room 2018, Gardner Commons.

At this Hinckley Forum, join us as we explore Ukraine, Russia’s wars, and the enduring importance of U.S. transatlantic interests through both personal experience and foreign policy expertise.

Join us as Ambassador George Kent will connect these lived realities to U.S. and European security, drawing on decades of diplomatic service in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Together, the speakers will emphasize that sustained U.S. engagement in Ukraine is a long-term strategic commitment tied to democratic values and regional stability. Velida Kent will share a human perspective shaped by Crimean Tatar exile, cultural survival, and her work supporting Ukrainian refugees after Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Speakers: 

• George Kent served as U.S. Ambassador to Estonia from 2023-25, capping a 33-year career as a U.S. foreign service officer (1992-2025). He served overseas at embassies in Tashkent, Uzbekistan; Warsaw, Poland; Bangkok, Thailand (twice); Kyiv, Ukraine (twice); and Tallinn, Estonia. He also had a number of assignments at the U.S. Department of State, including as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State with policy responsibilities for Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan from 2018-2021. In this latter role, he was subpoenaed in 2019 to testify in the first impeachment proceeding against President Trump. After retiring from the U.S. foreign service in 2025, Kent cycled the TransAmerica Bike Trail, raising money for Ukrainian front-line units and awareness of Ukraine’s importance for U.S. foreign policy interests. Kent speaks Ukrainian, Russian, Thai, and some Polish, German, and Italian. He has degrees from Harvard (AB 1989), Johns Hopkins SAIS (MA 1992), and the National Defense University’s Eisenhower School (MSc 2012). His hobbies include beekeeping, choral singing, cycling, gardening, and home brewing.
• Velida Kent was born in exile in Tashkent, Uzbekistan of Crimean Tatar heritage. Her father was deported as a child from Crimea in 1944 in a cattle car; her mother was born in a Soviet Siberian gulag (slave labor camp). Educated as an economist, she was working at the United Nations office in Uzbekistan when she met her husband, George; she joined his diplomatic life, starting in Poland. Velida made a career transition to teaching after receiving a Master's in Education from George Mason University. She spent six weeks along the Ukrainian-Polish border after Russia’s wider invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, helping resettle refugees, raising tens of thousands of dollars in the process. She has promoted the UNESCO-recognized Ukrainian artistic tradition of pysanky, dyed eggs, running classes in Ukraine, Virginia, and Estonia, and is known for elaborate gingerbread creations that have attracted media attention in the United States, Ukraine, and Estonia.

The Hinckley Institute neither supports nor opposes the views expressed in this forum.