How a Master's student has balanced his studies with support for Ukraine

When Danylo Riabtsev was growing up in Kyiv, he became a practitioner of Capoeira, the Brazilian martial art that combines dance, acrobatics and music.

Now, as a Master’s student at Warwick Business School, he is still blending seemingly disparate pursuits, balancing academic study with advocacy for Ukraine and its young people. The result has earned him an Outstanding Student Contribution Award (OSCA).

Capoeira is not a contest of brute force but one of movement, adaptability and anticipation. Those qualities have defined the past four years of his life. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the 21-year-old has been negotiating the competing demands of study, work, sport and campaigning, constantly adjusting his position as circumstances change around him.

He arrived in the UK in 2022 to begin undergraduate studies at Nottingham Trent University, having left Ukraine shortly after the invasion transformed life in his homeland. While pursuing his degree, he and a group of friends established a Ukrainian Society on campus. What began as a student club soon evolved into something much larger.

“It sort of became my side hustle,” he says. In reality, it became far more than that.

After affiliating with the Ukrainian Students Union, a nationwide umbrella organisation representing Ukrainian student societies, Danylo successfully applied to become Societies Officer. The role brought responsibility for a network spanning 30 to 40 Ukrainian societies and more than 1,000 students across the UK.

Later promoted to Society Development Director, he helped expand that network to 55 societies, creating a support structure for thousands of young Ukrainians studying far from home. In the wake of the Russian invasion, more Ukrainian students have come to the UK, creating an urgent need for communities that can provide cultural connection, practical support and collective representation.

For Danylo, these societies serve both emotional and political purposes. “On the one hand, they provide a beacon for Ukrainian students arriving on unfamiliar campuses, so they have an anchor in this new world,” he says.

“On the other, we advocate collectively, organise internships, develop professional opportunities, and ensure that Ukrainian voices are heard in public life.

“The big political decisions are made by governments. But we, as students, when we organise, we have a very big soft power as well.”

Studying for an MSc in Management

The scale of that activity has become especially visible during his year at Warwick Business School, where he has been studying for an MSc Management. Although not formally part of the local Ukrainian Society committee, he has advised students, helping them organise and run events, and has continued his interest in national initiatives. Among the highlights was the organisation of what he describes as the largest Ukrainian summit held outside Ukraine to date, a two-day gathering at the University of Cambridge that attracted hundreds of participants and representatives from student societies across the country.

Such achievements have won Danylo one of the OSCAs this year from the University of Warwick, which celebrate the outstanding contributions of Warwick's students who not only excel academically, but also find the time to campaign for good causes, found student societies, or lead charitable and community initiatives.   

Yet Danylo is keen to share the credit. His delight at receiving the award, he says, began not when he won but when he learned that he had been nominated by the Ukrainian Warwick community.

“Part of the reason I won the award is thanks to the support of Ukrainian staff and students throughout all the initiatives we have been working on together,” the Master’s student says.

Not that activism is the only arena in which he has distinguished himself. During his time at Warwick, Danylo has also stepped into a boxing ring as part of the University’s charity Fight Night, emerging victorious after months of preparation.

It reminds him of a Capoeira triumph when he lived in Ukraine. Before moving to Britain, he competed internationally for the Ukraine Capoeira team and won a championship in Budapest in 2021. His final opponent was Russian, a coincidence that now seems laden with symbolism. Although he no longer trains at the level required for elite competition, the sport still informs how he thinks about life as he juggles academic work alongside community leadership and employment.

Academically, the MSc student’s interests lie in accounting and finance. The capstone dissertation he is completing examines how Ukrainian companies have adapted their operations, logistics and supply chains to wartime conditions, drawing on themes that resonate with both his professional ambitions and his personal experience of conflict.

Since May, he has been working for mining and metals firm Metinvest as an HR manager within its commercial division and foreign assets business. Like many young Ukrainians in Britain, however, he faces difficult questions about the future. He had hoped to return to Kyiv but continuing security concerns have forced him to reconsider, at least for now. His family remains in Ukraine, apart from a sister studying in London.

“There is definite sadness about my home country because there’s so much uncertainty about what’s going to happen next,” he says.

Despite stepping away from formal leadership within the Ukrainian Students Union, the student, who is now reaching the end of his WBS course, continues to support the organisation informally. More importantly, he remains determined to keep attention focused on the war in Ukraine.

“I want to convey the message that the war is still going on. There are a lot of other new conflicts emerging in the world, which is devastating to see, and sometimes Ukraine fades from the international headlines.

“But I want to say again that the war is still not over and Russians are still trying to destroy our nation.”

For all his achievements, perhaps that is what defines Danylo most clearly. He belongs to a generation of Ukrainians whose education, careers and identities have been shaped by war, yet who remain committed to rebuilding their country’s future. Like a Capoeira practitioner in the ‘roda’, the circular ring in which the art form is played out, he has learned to adapt to every new challenge without losing sight of the movement guiding him forward.

“When the war does finally end, there will be a re-emergent Ukraine with a new generation of people who have either been studying abroad like me or who might have been through one of Warwick’s programmes aimed at creating the future leaders of Ukraine,” he says. 

Either way, if Ukraine’s eventual recovery depends on the talents and determination of its young people, then this young Master’s student already looks well prepared for the next movement.

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