Understanding the Stakes of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Online)

Since February 24, 2022, news and social media feeds from Ukraine have been showing us scenes of horror and mass destruction, from the deliberate targeting of civilian populations to the leveling of historic cities, now widely considered war crimes. But the armed Russian intervention on Ukrainian soil began with the 2014 annexation of Crimea.

Policy analysts debate whether and what it might take for Russian President Vladimir Putin to turn to his formidable nuclear arsenal, and what kind of decisive gains (or concessions) it might take to bring the war to an end. 

Piotr Kosicki, Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park,  discusses lessons from history -- from World War II and the Cold War onward -- to offer some context and some clues to help understand where we are, how we got here, and what comes next.

Piotr Kosicki is Associate Professor of History at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he teaches the history of Central and Eastern Europe, religious history, and the history of revolution. His books include Catholics on the Barricades (published by Yale in 2018) and, most recently, Political Exile in the Global Twentieth Century. He hosts a podcast about Eastern Europe for the New Books Network, and he has written on Ukraine among others for the magazines Commonweal and The New Republic.

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