A decade of war: origins of Russian aggression in Ukraine.
Date and time:
Monday 23 October, 2023
19:00 - 20:30
Location:
Ukrainian Institute London
79 Holland Park, W11 3SW
London
W11 3SW
For many observers outside of Ukraine, it could seem that Russia’s war began on 24 February 2022. However, this escalation was preceded by eight years of occupation of Crimea and aggression in eastern Ukraine. Before it escalated its aggression, Russia violated international law and human rights and enjoyed impunity.
We will discuss two new books on the war that is now nearly a decade long: Gwendolyn Sasse’s Russia’s War against Ukraine and Jakob Hauter’s Russia's Overlooked Invasion: The causes of the 2014 outbreak of War in Ukraine's Donbas. In conversation with Ursula Woolley, the authors will consider Russian imperialism, the changing perception of the war outside of Ukraine and the consequences of Russia’s aggression for Ukraine and the world.
Free – £10Friends of Ukrainian Institute London can use Eventbrite codes issued to them for free tickets for this event. Please email info@ukrainianinstitute.org.uk if you need a reminder of your code!
Speaker
Gwendolyn Sasse
Gwendolyn Sasse has been the Director of the Centre for East European and International Studies (ZOiS) in Berlin since its establishment in 2016. She is also the Einstein-Professor for the Comparative Study of Democracy and Authoritarianism at Humboldt University, Berlin (since 2021). Previously, she was Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Oxford. She retains an affiliation with Nuffield College as Senior Research Fellow. She is also non-resident Senior Fellow at Carnegie Europe. Her research interests include the comparative dynamics of democracy and authoritarianism, protest, war, displacement and the political remittances of migrants. Her current research in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine concentrates on public opinion in Ukraine and on displacement from and within Ukraine. Her book The Crimea Question: Identity, Transition, and Conflict (Harvard University Press 2007; paperback 2014) won the Alexander Nove Prize of the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies. In September 2023 Polity Press published her new book Russia’s War against Ukraine (an earlier version was published in German by C.H. Beck in 2022).
Speaker
Jakob Hauter
Jakob Hauter received his PhD from University College London’s (UCL) School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) in 2022. Previously, he studied International Relations and Contemporary European Studies in Dresden, Saint Petersburg, Bath, and Siena. He also worked as a Russian and Ukrainian media and current affairs analyst for the United States Mission to the United Kingdom and as a researcher for Forensic Architecture. His book Russia's Overlooked Invasion: The causes of the 2014 outbreak of War in Ukraine's Donbas is an updated and streamlined version of his PhD thesis. He is also the editor of the collected volume Civil War? Interstate War? Hybrid War? Dimensions and Interpretations of the Donbas Conflict in 2014–2020.
Moderator
Ursula Woolley
Ursula Woolley is the Chair of the Ukrainian Institute London. She was posted to Kyiv from December 1991 to January 1995 to set up the first British Council offices in Ukraine, in Kyiv, Lviv and Odesa. During the annexation of Crimea and the first years of Russia's war in Ukraine, she was the Executive Director of Pushkin House in London (2012-2016). She defended her PhD in Ukrainian Studies at UCL SSEES earlier this month.
