Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine | PONARS Eurasia Insights
OUR MISSION
The Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia (PONARS Eurasia) is a network of over 125 academics, mainly from North America and post-Soviet Eurasia, advancing new approaches to research on security, politics, economics, and society in Russia and Eurasia. Its core missions are to connect scholarship to policy on and in Russia and Eurasia and to foster a community, especially of mid-career and rising scholars, committed to developing policy-relevant and collaborative research.
Policy memos
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Illiberalism and Public Opinion Junctures in Russia’s War on Ukraine
(PONARS Eurasia Commentary) Analysts have identified many reasons President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in 2022. One major explanation rests on Putin’s illiberal ideology and a desire to return Russia to Soviet-era glory, which, in his outlook, includes controlling Ukraine. Leading up to the invasion, however, Putin’s popularity had hit a historic low, but it sharply increased…
Policy Exchange Discussion & Memos: Guaranteeing Ukraine’s Long-Run Security (June 9)
Over one hundred days into Russia’s invasion, Ukraine is still valiantly defending itself against an unprecedented existential threat. For this first entry in our Policy Exchange series, we invited six preeminent scholars of post-communist politics and international relations to discuss the following forward-looking question that is likely to be central to regional security for the…
Ukraine’s Best Chance for Peace
(Foreign Affairs) How Neutrality Can Bring Security—and Satisfy Both Russia and the West. At this stage of the war in Ukraine, as Russia steps up its offensive in the Donbas and more revelations of the atrocities committed by its forces emerge, the prospect of any kind of negotiated peace between Moscow and Kyiv seems remote. Even earlier this spring, when delegations from the two sides…
We want the war to end. But should calls for negotiating with Putin be taken seriously?
(Chicago Tribune) Three months have passed since Russia invaded Ukraine, and calls for negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin are growing. The leaders of the European Union’s three largest member states — Germany, France and Italy — have all recently issued statements calling for a cease-fire, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz underscoring the need for this to come…
Policy Briefs | BEAR Network-PONARS Eurasia Conference
“Between the EU and Russia: Domains of Diversity and Contestation,” April 29-30, 2022, Washington, DC Panelists/Authors: PANEL 1: Ukrainian Society and Russia’s Full-scale InvasionMikhail Alexseev, San Diego State University, Theodore Gerber, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Uliana Movchan, Karazin Kharkiv National University, Olena Nikolayenko, Fordham University PANEL…
The Baltic States Are Also Worried About Russia
(Washington Post/Monkey Cage) A new survey shows what citizens think about NATO — and what they would do if attacked. Leaders in Finland and Sweden pushed ahead this week with plans to join the NATO alliance, yet another sign of continued anxiety that Russia’s war in Ukraine could spread to other European countries. This concern is readily apparent in Estonia,…
International Society Must Act in the Wake of Russia’s Failed Opposition
(PONARS Eurasia Commentary) The failure to stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s accumulation of power made possible his invasion of Ukraine. If Russian society hopes to prevent future tragedies, ordinary citizens need to actively stand up to the authorities in order to prevent the kinds of abuses that Russia is now inflicting on Ukrainian society. Leaders accumulate as much power as…
The Collapse of the Soviet Union | PONARS Eurasia Online Academy
It has been thirty years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Its legacies are still present in the political, social, and ideological landscape of today’s Russia and the former Soviet republics. Today’s confrontation between Russia and the West is commonly seen through the prism of the Cold War in which the U.S.-led capitalist world was engaged in an existential struggle with the…
Online Academy
PONARS Eurasia Online Academy: educational videos authored by members and designed to provide succinct overviews of policy-relevant research and scholarship on Russia and Eurasia. Each video is accompanied by a list of additional sources, providing a foundation for those who would like to learn more about the topics addressed.
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- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman speaks with Russian China experts Vita Spivak and Alexander Gabuev about the February meeting between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, and what it may tell us about where the Russian-Chinese relationship is headed.
- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with scholars Kelly Smith and Benjamin Nathans about the history, achievements, and impending shutdown of the Memorial Society, Russia's oldest and most venerable civic organization, and what its imminent liquidation portends for the Russian civil society.
- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with social scientist Andrey Shcherbak about the quality of the data collected in the recent population census and the goals of Vladimir Putin's government's nationalities policy
- In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Alexander Verkhovsky about the Kremlin's ever expanding toolkit against political and civic activists, journalists, and other dissidents.
