One year of Russian-Ukrainian war: What does it mean for global security?
Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal, the third largest in the world, in exchange for the territorial guarantees from great powers, including… Russia. However, in 2014 Russia attacked non-bloc Ukraine and in 2022 started full-scale war and genocide unseen in Europe since WWII.
In 2014, Ukraine was officially non-bloc. Only 12% of Ukrainians supported NATO. No NATO troops, bases, missiles on Ukraine's territory. Yet, Russia attacked. Why?
Olexiy Haran, Professor of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, the oldest Ukrainian University (founded in 1615), explains historical, ideological, and geopolitical reasons for Russian invasion: Putin’s desire to restore the Russian empire where Ukrainians were officially called as “Little Russians” and Ukrainian language was banned. In 1933 Ukraine, "grain basket of Europe", lost from 3 to 10 mln people in a famine artificially organised by Moscow.
Prof. Haran will further discuss the influence the war has on global geopolitics and security and, specifically, dramatic consequences for the Global South: starvation, nuclear weapons proliferation and safety of nuclear power stations, terrorism, genocides.
Olexiy Haran is Professor of Comparative Politics at the National University of Kyiv Mohyla Academy (UKMA). In 1991-93, he was Dean and organizer of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the re-born Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Since 2002, he has served as Founding Director of the UKMA School for Policy Analysis, and since 2015 as Research Director at the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a leading Ukrainian analytical and sociological think tank. He is the co-editor of Constructing a Political Nation: Changes in the Attitudes of Ukrainians during the War in the Donbas (2017), Ukraine in Europe: Questions and Answers (2009), Russia and Ukraine: Ten Years of Transformation (Moscow 2003) and several other books. His latest book is From Brezhnev to Zelensky: Dilemmas of Ukrainian Political Scientist (2021). Also, he is a frequent commentator in Ukrainian and international media.
In winter 2013-2014, Prof. Haran was a member of the Council of ‘Maidan’ movement. In 2014-2016 as a political scientist he spent several weeks at the frontline nearby Mariupol, Luhansk, Avdiivka, and Donetsk airport. For 15 years he was a member of Public Council under Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.