Author: TheConversation

By David Roger Marples, Distinguished University Professor of Russian and East European History, University of Alberta The Russian war on Ukraine has lasted well over 100 days. It has exacerbated a critical demographic situation in Ukraine, one that saw its population fall from 52.5 million in 1991 at the time of independence to a projected 43.2 million in 2022 prior to the outbreak of war. The population fall was attributed to a low birth rate, high mortality rate and emigration. During the presidency of Petro Poroshenko from 2014 to 2019, Ukraine became the poorest country in Europe, surpassing Moldova...

By Kseniya Oksamytna, Lecturer in International Politics, City, University of London Former war crimes prosecutor Sir Howard Morrison recently highlighted the dangers posed by the negative, often insulting and dehumanizing, statements made by some Russian politicians and media personalities about Ukraine and its people. “Genocide is often rooted in the way that one nation or one ethnic group views another and how it describes them,” Morrison said, citing the way Nazis referred to the Poles as “subhuman” before and during the second world war, or the way Hutu elites in Rwanda referred to Tutsis as “cockroaches” before the 1994...

By Tony Ward, Fellow in Historical Studies, The University of Melbourne In explaining the reasons for Russia’s unexpected military weakness in Ukraine, few have expressed it better than “The Economist.” The magazine noted “the incurable inadequacy of despotic power” and “the cheating, bribery and peculation” that is “characteristic of the entire administration.” Peculation means embezzlement. It is a word rarely used nowadays; these words were in fact published by “The Economist” in October 1854, when Russia was in the process of losing the Crimean War. But they might just easily be about Russia today, under Vladimir Putin, and the mess...

By Lowell Barrington, Associate Professor of Political Science , Marquette University Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 has, thus far, produced the opposite of what he expected. Rather than deepening political fissures in the West, Putin’s invasion has united the leaders and populations of the majority of countries across Europe and encouraged further NATO expansion. Putin also seems to have believed it would be relatively easy to capture Ukraine’s capital and topple its government. Instead, the Russian military lost the battle for Kyiv and experienced the humiliating sinking of its flagship Black Sea cruiser,...