Maxim Fedorov is a journalist, author and public speaker with extensive experience reporting on Ukraine and Russia. He has worked as a correspondent in Ukraine for Finland’s public service broadcaster Yle, written several books on Ukraine, war, society and the Ukrainian language, and regularly speaks about everyday life in Ukraine, resilience, security and the impact of Russia’s war on Europe. Fedorov graduated from the University of Helsinki in 2010 with a Master of Arts degree in Finnish and has studied ten languages. 

Sami Nurmi is a Major General and Deputy Chief of Staff of the Finnish Defence Forces. He has served as a staff officer in the IFOR/SFOR peacekeeping operations in Bosnia, at the European Union Military Staff in Brussels, and as Deputy Defence Attaché in the United States and Canada. 

Svitlana Kovalchuk, PhD, Scientific Secretary of Yaroslav Mudryi National Library of Ukraine, a member of the Ukrainian Library Association, Consultant for the UNESCO project “Libraries as Spaces of Psychosocial Support” (2024). Areas of professional interest: psychosocial support in the libraries, trauma-informed approach in library work, bibliotherapy. Yaroslav Mudryi National Library of Ukraine is the leading state institution in the library sector. It also serves as a research, methodological, and coordinating center for all public libraries in Ukraine. 

Eleonor Grenholm is a Desk Officer at the National Library of Sweden, Libraries Collaboration Unit. She has extensive experience in digital skills and MIL and has followed and contributed to developments in library preparedness in Sweden since 2000. 

Emma Lang Åberg, formerly Head of Library Services in two Swedish municipalities, is now Department Manager for the Public Libraries in Lund. She is responsible for, among other areas, media acquisitions, library systems, staffing, sustainability issues, and emergency preparedness. 

Miia Utriainen became a library manager fairly recently in a regional library called Sompio. It consists of three municipalities in Northern Finland: Pelkosenniemi, Savukoski and Sodankylä. The Lapland Libraries network, which the Sompio library is a part of, decided there was need for a joint plan of preparedness within the network. A few people were chosen to work on the plan that was later approved by the board of directors of the Lapland libraries network.