2026 Amos Fortune Forum Marie Yovanovitch

                       Insights on Ukraine: A Conversation with
                              Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch

The Amos Fortune Forum 2026 summer speaker series will feature Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch offering her insights on the Ukraine conflict on Friday, August 7^th at 7:00 pm in the Jaffrey Center Meetinghouse. The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the culmination of decades of tension, and Yovanovitch is uniquely positioned to share insights on the historical roots and current trajectory of the struggle. She will draw from foreign service experience in both countries, including her three years serving as U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine (2016-2019). What is the path forward for the region, and how can this conflict inform our understanding of democracy in the global sphere? Yovanovitch will answer attendee questions from the perspective of a career diplomat committed to the principles of non-partisan duty and integrity in service.

Marie Yovanovitch is the author of a best-selling memoir, Lessons from the Edge. She is a Non-Resident Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, Georgetown University and a Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. During her thirty-three-year diplomatic career, she served as the U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Ukraine. She also worked in Russia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Somalia, and in multiple assignments in Washington, including as the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, where she coordinated policy on European and global security issues.

About the Amos Fortune Forum:

The Amos Fortune Forum was started in the summer of 1946 by several Jaffrey Center residents who recognized that there were many interesting, distinguished speakers in the Monadnock region and beyond who could speak on issues of public interest and importance. One of the residents had read in Jaffrey’s town history about Amos Fortune, a slave who had purchased his own freedom and that of his wife. The Fortunes moved to Jaffrey in 1781 where he established himself as a successful tanner. On his death, he made substantial bequests to Jaffrey’s First Church and Schoolhouse Number 8. In the spirit of the Forum’s mission of providing a platform for the free sharing of ideas and to honor the legacy of Amos Fortune as a free thinker, the founders proudly named the new summer speakers series the Amos Fortune Forum. Today the Forum has hosted well over 500 presentations in the Meetinghouse with topics that range from local to international interest. For over 80 years, the Forum has been providing a platform for speakers to educate, enlighten and inspire the intellectual lives of thousands of curious and engaged Monadnock area citizens. The lectures are free to the public and given without compensation by members of the community, their relatives, and friends.