Kennan Institute: "Implications of Russia's War on Ukrainian Identity and Governance" Discussion

The event carried online took place today, February 16, 2023, Thursday 3-4 PM at the Wilson Center.  The Director of the Kennan Institute William Pomeranz interviewed the guest speaker from Odessa National University, Professor V. Dubovyk.

The discussion really emphasized the break-apart of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s: would Ukrainians ever speak Russian again, now that it was an independent state, invalidating its close ties to Russia when under Russian control?  It seemed similar to the talk between parent and an errant teenager now launched on his own, demanding to be his own self, having his own personal identity.  The professor seemed to emphasize where Ukraine has come from when he referred to Georgia, also once under rule from Mother Russia, as failing to understand Ukraine's going to war with Russia, when both are alike, controlled  under a system of Russian oligarchs.

But Professor Dubovyk insisted the break-up is complete: "WE WILL WORK WITH NATO MORE," he averred.  No matter how the War turns out, he assured his audience, we will seek closer ties with NATO.  A question was asked of him from the audience: It's an issue of sovereignty--Who will guarantee your independence?

Now the answer to that question I have found in the words of the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, when he suggested that never again should Russia be granted the opportunity to invade another sovereign state such as Ukraine; nor come to the aid and support of another autocratic regime such as in Venezuela or Syria: President Putin must be prevented from his avarice inclinations 

For the great meaning of the Ukrainian Conflict is that a tyrant state is on the loose and has been wreaking its deleterious ambitions on the lowly nations among those of the United Nations.   Citizens of the countries his troops have assumed military superiority have suffered greatly due to the chaos Putin is known to create.  And if given the license, importantly, Russia will absorb the country of Ukraine, making its people second-class Russians!  See how he supplants Ukrainian teachers with Russian teachers in areas of Ukraine under Russian-supplied local governments, already.

No, the matter of Putin's invasion of Ukraine amounts to a series of war crimes upon an independent nation's populace, may the truth emerge after the war.