The Cambridge Union

20/05/2026

Join us at 4pm in the Library, on the 21st of May, as we host Ukranian MP Kira Rudik!

Kira Rudik is a Member of the Ukrainian Parliament and leader of the political party Holos.
Since the beginning of Russia’s full scale invasion, Kira Rudik has promoted the agenda of Ukraine in more than 50 countries and given more than 3000 interviews for key international media outlets. Kira Rudik advocates for democratic values, digital transformation, and the confiscation of frozen Russian assets for the sake of Ukraine, as well as female leadership and animal rights.

18/05/2026

Join us on Tuesday 19th May at the Union for the Nuclear Energy Panel.

Speakers:

Jim Smith is Professor of Environmental Science at Portsmouth University and an expert in modelling radioactive pollution in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. He has co-ordinated four multinational projects on the environmental consequences of the Chernobyl accident and has regularly worked in the Exclusion Zone. He is lead author of a major book on the accident: Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences and authored key opinion pieces in Nature and Science on the Fukushima accident. He has been a member of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Expert Groups on Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Dr Paul Dorfman is Bennett Scholar, Bennett Institute for Innovation & Acceleration, University of Sussex; Chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group; Member of the Irish Government Radiation Protection Advisory Committee; Member of the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group. Paul served as Secretary to the UK government scientific advisory Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters; led a European Environment Agency response to Fukushima; served as Expert to the European Economic and Social Committee; Advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence Nuclear Submarine Dismantling Project; Adviser to the French Govt. Assemblee Nationale relative à la Faisabilité Technique et Financière du Démantèlement des Installations Nucléaire, and drafted sets of UK Department of Health NHS guidance.

Raquel Heredia is Senior Programme Lead for Strategic Partnerships at the World Nuclear Association, where she leads engagement across end energy users, the nuclear industry, and multilateral organisations to translate energy demand into nuclear deployment strategies and inform policy development.
Her work sits at the intersection of policy, strategy, and stakeholder engagement, focusing on how nuclear technologies can enable equitable and practical low-carbon transitions across the global economy. She is also an active advocate for diversity in the energy sector and for encouraging women and girls into STEAM careers.

18/05/2026

We are delighted to be hosting Nina Khrushcheva on Tuesday 19th May at 7pm! The event will be held in the Union Library.

Nina Khrushcheva is a professor of International Affairs at The New School in New York City and a contributor to Project Syndicate: Association of Newspapers Around the World. Her articles have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and other international publications.

She is the author of several books in English and Russian including In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones (2019) (co-authored) and Imagining Nabokov: Russia Between Art and Politics (2008). Her latest book (in Russian) is a biography of her great-grandfather, Nikita Khrushchev: An Outlier of the System (Diletant, 2024).

18/05/2026

Chernobyl: 40 Years On

Join us on Tuesday 19th May at the Union for the Nuclear Energy panel.

Speakers:

Jim Smith is Professor of Environmental Science at Portsmouth University and an expert in modelling radioactive pollution in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. He has co-ordinated four multinational projects on the environmental consequences of the Chernobyl accident and has regularly worked in the Exclusion Zone. He is lead author of a major book on the accident: Chernobyl: Catastrophe and Consequences and authored key opinion pieces in Nature and Science on the Fukushima accident. He has been a member of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Expert Groups on Chernobyl and Fukushima.

Dr Paul Dorfman is Bennett Scholar, Bennett Institute for Innovation & Acceleration, University of Sussex; Chair of the Nuclear Consulting Group; Member of the Irish Government Radiation Protection Advisory Committee; Member of the International Nuclear Risk Assessment Group. Paul served as Secretary to the UK government scientific advisory Committee Examining Radiation Risks from Internal Emitters; led a European Environment Agency response to Fukushima; served as Expert to the European Economic and Social Committee; Advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence Nuclear Submarine Dismantling Project; Adviser to the French Govt. Assemblee Nationale relative à la Faisabilité Technique et Financière du Démantèlement des Installations Nucléaire, and drafted sets of UK Department of Health NHS guidance.

Raquel Heredia is Senior Programme Lead for Strategic Partnerships at the World Nuclear Association, where she leads engagement across end energy users, the nuclear industry, and multilateral organisations to translate energy demand into nuclear deployment strategies and inform policy development.
Her work sits at the intersection of policy, strategy, and stakeholder engagement, focusing on how nuclear technologies can enable equitable and practical low-carbon transitions across the global economy. She is also an active advocate for diversity in the energy sector and for encouraging women and girls into STEAM careers.

17/05/2026

Join us at 8pm, on Thursday 21th May for the Cambridge Union’s fourth debate of Easter Term, on the motion ‘THB NATO is unfit for the world today’; and at 7:30pm for the emergency debate on the motion ‘THB technology has made us less intelligent.’

Proposition:

Dr Antony Stokes LVO OBE

Dr Antony Stokes LVO OBE is a former British Ambassador with thirty years of senior diplomatic experience, including as British Ambassador in Hanoi and Havana and as Ambassador for Climate Change. He writes and speaks on how diplomacy actually works, drawing on practitioner experience. His Ambassador at Large Gazette reaches 8,000 readers globally. He read Engineering at Queens' College, Cambridge.

Sevim Dağdelen

Sevim Dağdelen is an author, foreign policy expert, and served as a member of the German Federal Parliament from 2005 to 2025. She is the foreign policy expert on the Federal Executive Board of the BSW party and is known for her outspoken critique of military interventionism, as well as her bestselling book,“NATO: A Reckoning.”

Opposition:

Kira Rudik

Kira Rudik is a Member of Ukrainian Parliament and leader of the political party Holos.
Since the beginning of Russia's full scale invasion, Kira Rudik has promoted the agenda of Ukraine in more than 50 countries and given more than 3000 interviews for key international media outlets. Kira Rudik advocates for democratic values, digital transformation, and the confiscation of frozen Russian assets for the sake of Ukraine, as well as female leadership and animal rights.

David Aaronovitch

David Aaronovitch has produced, presented and edited factual programmes for ITV, the BBC, C4 and C5. He was a columnist for the Independent, the Guardian, The Observer and The Times, winning several awards.

16/05/2026

At 6pm on Monday 18th May, we are delighted to be welcoming Leonid Volkov to our Chamber for a Speaker’s Event!

Leonid Volkov is the political director of the Anti-Corruption Foundation, the leading organisation of the Russian anti-Putin and anti-war resistance movement, founded by the late Alexei Navalny. 

Volkov was campaign manager and chief of staff for Navalny’s Moscow mayoral campaign of 2013 and presidential campaign of 2018 and since 2019 he has to reside outside of Russia. 

There are eleven politically motivated criminal cases against him initiated by Putin’s regime and in 2024 he was brutally attacked in front of his house in Vilnius. In 2025 he was sentenced to 18 years of imprisonment (in absentia). 

Volkov currently also serves as the Chief of staff for Yulia Navalnaya, as well as the Co-founder of the Internet Protection Society (OZI), Russia’s leading digital rights NGO.

14/05/2026

At 6pm on Friday 15th May, we are delighted to be welcoming Jax Jones to our Chamber for a Speaker’s Event!

Jax Jones is a globally renowned DJ, songwriter and producer who has spent over a decade at the forefront of the British music scene, boasting 8 UK Top 10 singles, 9 UK platinum singles, over 60 million single sales and a 9 billion global audio streams.
Honoured with multiple GRAMMY, BRIT, and Ivor Novello nominations, he has become a mainstay in modern British music and continues to create genre-defying music for both the charts and specialist dance scene, working and collaborating with industry legends like Whitney Houston, Ed Sheeran, Diana Ross, RAYE and Mark Ronson.
He has also focussed on building opportunities for emerging artists with his record label WUGD championing the next generation of UK talent while his work as a producer and collaborator continues to span genres and continents.

14/05/2026

13/05/2026

Jax Jones is a globally renowned DJ, songwriter and producer who has spent over a decade at the forefront of the British music scene, boasting 8 UK Top 10 singles, 9 UK platinum singles, over 60 million single sales and a 9 billion global audio streams.
Honoured with multiple GRAMMY, BRIT, and Ivor Novello nominations, he has become a mainstay in modern British music and continues to create genre-defying music for both the charts and specialist dance scene, working and collaborating with industry legends like Whitney Houston, Ed Sheeran, Diana Ross, RAYE and Mark Ronson.
He has also focussed on building opportunities for emerging artists with his record label WUGD championing the next generation of UK talent while his work as a producer and collaborator continues to span genres and continents.

11/05/2026

Join us at 7pm in the Union on Tuesday 12th May for a panel marking 25 years since the start of the war in Afghanistan.

Speakers:

Sir Laurie Bristow, President of Hughes Hall, was a British diplomat for 32 years.  He was Ambassador to Afghanistan during the fall of the Republic to the Taliban in 2021,  the UK’s Ambassador to Russia from 2016 to 2020, and Deputy Ambassador to Russia from 2007 to 2010.  He was Ambassador to Azerbaijan from 2004 to 2007. 

Dr. Neelam Raina is a post conflict reconstruction expert and the Director of Research of Middlesex University. Her research focuses on social and economic impact of livelihoods for women in fragile, conflict affected states. Raina is a strong advocate for Afghan women and is the Director of the Secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Afghan women and girls in UK parliament since 2021. Raina is the co-founder of the Afghan Solidarity Coalition and was part of a large effort to evacuate Afghan researchers and families to safe locations in October 2021.

Hameed Hakimi is a senior researcher and policy expert specialising in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and broader regional affairs in South Asia and Central Asia. As a Member of Magdalene College, his doctoral research critically examines conceptions of security, securitisation and migration in Europe. He has held affiliations with several globally renowned institutions for over a decade, including 13 years at Chatham House in senior research roles, as a Senior Fellow (nonresident) at the Atlantic Council and Senior Fellow at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS).

Brad Blitz is a Professor of International Politics and Policy at University College London Institute of Education, and former Head of the UCL Department of Education, Practice and Society (2019-2024). Until June 2019, he was Director of the British Academy/DFID Programme on Modern Slavery. His research focuses on displacement, governance and human rights.  He was until recently Co-Investigator on a £15 million ‘hub’ on Gender, Justice and Security, funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).