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PONARS Eurasia
PONARS Eurasia
  • About
    • Contact
    • Membership
      • All Members
      • Core Members
      • Collegium Members
      • Associate Members
      • About Membership
    • Ukraine Experts
    • Executive Committee
  • Policy Memos
    • List of Policy Memos
    • Submissions
  • Podcasts
  • Online Academy
  • Events
    • Past Events
  • Recommended
  • Ukraine Experts
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RECOMMENDED
  • The Russia Program at GW (IERES)

    View
  • The Evolving Concerns of Russians after the Invasion | New Voices on Eurasia with Sasha de Vogel (March 9)

    View
  • PONARS Eurasia Spring Policy Conference (March 3)

    View
  • Ukrainathon 2023 (Feb. 24-25)

    View
  • How Putin has shrugged off unprecedented economic sanctions over Russia’s war in Ukraine – for now

    View
RSS PONARS Eurasia Podcast
  • The Putin-Xi Summit: What's New In Their Joint Communique ? February 23, 2022
    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.
  • Exploring the Russian Courts' Ruling to Liquidate the Memorial Society January 28, 2022
    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.
  • Russia's 2021 census and the Kremlin's nationalities policy [Lipman Series 2021] December 9, 2021
    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
  • Active citizens of any kind are under threat [Lipman Series 2021] November 5, 2021
    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.
  • Russia's Legislative Elections followup [Lipman Series 2021] October 4, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Tanya Lokot and Nikolay Petrov about the results of Russia’s legislative elections and about what comes next.
  • Why Is the Kremlin Nervous? [Lipman Series 2021] September 14, 2021
    In this week’s PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Ben Noble and Nikolay Petrov about Russia’s September 17-19 legislative elections, repressive measures against electoral challengers, and whether to expect anything other than preordained results.
  • Vaccine Hesitancy in Russia, France, and the United States [Lipman Series 2021] August 31, 2021
    In this week's PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Denis Volkov, Naira Davlashyan, and Peter Slevin about why COVID-19 vaccination rates are still so low across the globe, comparing vaccine hesitant constituencies across Russia, France, and the United States.  
  • Is Russia Becoming More Soviet? [Lipman Series 2021] July 26, 2021
      In a new PONARS Eurasia Podcast episode, Maria Lipman chats with Maxim Trudolyubov about the current tightening of the Russian political sphere, asking whether or not it’s helpful to draw comparisons to the late Soviet period.
  • The Evolution of Russia's Political Regime [Lipman Series 2021] June 21, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Grigory Golosov and Henry Hale about the evolution of Russia's political regime, and what to expect in the lead-up to September's Duma elections.
  • Volodymyr Zelensky: Year Two [Lipman Series 2021] May 24, 2021
    In this week's episode of the PONARS Eurasia Podcast, Maria Lipman chats with Sergiy Kudelia and Georgiy Kasianov about Ukrainian President Zelensky's second year in office, and how he has handled the political turbulence of the past year.
  • Recommended | Рекомендуем

Policy Exchange Discussion & Memos: Guaranteeing Ukraine’s Long-Run Security (June 9)

  • June 3, 2022
  • PONARS Eurasia

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 long-term:

Regardless of how the war ends, how can Ukraine’s long-run security realistically be guaranteed?

Their Policy Exchange memos (downloadable below) illuminate several different perspectives for thinking about this vexing issue. All of the authors appear to agree on the same starting point: Russia must be defeated on the battlefield and held accountable for war crimes committed before Ukraine’s security can be negotiated. Whether that defeat involves a return to pre-war borders or even the return of Crimea is still an open question.

Yet beyond the need to defeat Russia, the experts diverged about how much Ukraine could rely on the West for security guarantees. The main point of contention was whether NATO membership was a realistic possibility for Ukraine moving forward. Two groups of experts argue yes. Maria Popova and Oxana Shevel draw attention to the admirable pace of domestic reform in Ukraine since 2014, helping put membership within reach while also highlighting the imperative of the NATO umbrella for deterring future Russian aggression. For Petro Burkovskyi and Olexiy Haran, that membership should come without any constraints on Ukraine’s military build-up.

Yet the other two authors were more skeptical about how far the West would actually go to defend Ukraine’s sovereignty. Highlighting the hesitation of the US and UK on the NATO question, as well as potential disunity in the alliance over enlargement, Mariya Omelicheva discusses a need for Ukraine’s own path to self-reliant security. Paul D’Anieri questions whether any commitments less than NATO membership will actually be credible to deter future Russian aggression.

There was much more agreement on the need to pair domestic reforms with this type of diplomatic outreach. This begins with the continued arming and fortifying of Ukraine’s military. Omelicheva terms this strategy “Fortress Ukraine,” which would include building robust air defense, upgrading military technology, and boosting cyber capabilities. But Ukraine requires a vibrant economic base to support such modernization as well as a robust democracy to ensure cooperation with the West. The contributions from Popova and Shevel and D’Anieri both see a road to EU membership as potentially accelerating and consolidating political progress already made.

All four Policy Exchange memos are worth reading in full and can be found below.

Thursday, June 9, 2022, 9:30 AM – 11:00 AM | Eventbrite | Zoom Meeting Link

Event Recording: YouTube | Facebook Videos

– – – – – – – –

Petro Burkovskyi & Olexiy Haran_Policy Exchange Memo_June 2022 (PDF)View
Mariya Omelicheva_Policy Exchange Memo_June 2022 (PDF)View
Maria Popova & Oxana Shevel_Policy Exchange Memo_June 2022 (PDF)View
Paul DAnieri_Policy Exchange Memo_June 2022 (PDF)View

– – – – – – – –

Petro Burkovskyi is Executive Director of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF), a leading Ukrainian analytical and sociological think tank. He has supervised DIF analytical activities since October 2017. Before joining DIF he held various roles at the National Institute for Strategic Studies. His areas of expertise are history, comparative analysis, constitutional law, decision making process, security policy, energy policy, international relations.

Olexiy Haran is a Professor of Comparative Politics at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (UKMA). He also serves as Founding Director of the UKMA School for Policy Analysis and Research Director at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation (DIF). He has co-authored several books, including Constructing a Political Nation: Changes in the Attitudes of Ukrainians during the War in the Donbas, Ukraine in Europe: Questions and Answers, and Russia and Ukraine: Ten Years of Transformation.

Mariya Y. Omelicheva is a Professor of Strategy at the National War College. Her research and teaching interests include international and Eurasian security, counterterrorism and human rights, democracy promotion in the post-Soviet territory, Russia’s foreign and security policy, gender and security, and crime-terror nexus in Eurasia. Over the course of her work, she has authored three books and over a hundred peer-reviewed articles.

Maria Popova is the Jean Monnet Chair and Associate Professor of Political Science at McGill University in Montreal. Her work explores the intersection of politics and law in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, specifically the rule of law, judicial reform, political corruption, populist parties, and legal repression of dissent. Her book, Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies (Cambridge UP, 2012), won the American Association for Ukrainian Studies prize for best book in the fields of Ukrainian history, politics, language, literature, and culture.

Oxana Shevel is Associate Professor of Political Science at Tufts University. She focuses on the post-Communist region surrounding Russia, and issues such as nation- and state-building, the politics of citizenship and migration, memory and religious politics, and challenges to democratization in the post-Soviet region. She is the author of Migration, Refugee Policy, and State Building in Post-communist Europe (Cambridge University Press, 2011).

Paul D’Anieri is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the University of California-Riverside. He studies politics in the former Soviet Union, focusing on Ukraine and on Ukraine-Russia relations. He also teaches and studies economics and budgeting in universities, based on his experience as an administrator at UCR, the University of Florida, and the University of Kansas.

This event is on the record, open to the public, and will be recorded.

See the George Washington University calendar listing for this event.

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Why Still Pro-Russia? Making Sense of Hungary’s and Serbia’s Pro-Russia Stance

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