War in Ukraine: Update from Kyiv

Maksym Yali, Head of a Center for New World Order and Professor of International Relations at the National Aviation University in Kyiv, comments on when we are likely to see the Ukrainian counteroffensive commence, what's at stake and where it might take place.  

Maksym Yali on twitter: @maksymyali 

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Daria Isachenko, Associate at the Centre for Applied Turkey Studies (CATS) at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), discusses Turkey's relations with Russia in light of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine: Turkey-Russia relations and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, war in Ukraine, Presidential elections in Turkey this year, and how relations might change this year.  

More about Daria Isachenko's work

Daria Isachenko on Turkey's Stakes in the Russia-NATO Rivalry

Daria Isachenko on Turkey-Russia Partnership in the War over Nagorno-Karabakh 

Daria Isachenko on Turkey and Russia: The Logic of Conflictual Cooperation

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Oleksa Drachewych, Assistant Professor in History at Western University, discusses the echoes of history in Russia's invasion of Ukraine: implications of the Bolshevik revolution and its aftermath, the use of narrative and symbols from World War II, and the brutal echoes of history in the way in which Russia has been carrying out the current invasion of Ukraine. 

The current Russian regime "by conflating the Soviet experience [in World War II] to being Russian - they are essentially removing the Ukrainian experience from the broader narrative." 

"The Russian rhetoric that tends to dehumanise Ukrainians very much mimics a lot of the way that the Soviet Union aimed to dehumanise the Germans, Romanians and others... during the Second World War... and that... dehumanisation then turned into violence and anger against civilians".

Oleksa Drachewych on Calls for peace in Ukraine a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion are unrealistic

Oleksa Drachewych on How Russia’s fixation on the Second World War helps explain its Ukraine invasion

Oleksa Drachewych on Putin's War on Ukraine and on History 

Oleksa Drachewych on twitter:  @ODrachewych

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer

Jenny Mathers, Senior Lecturer in International Politics at Aberystwyth University discusses the intersection of gender, heroism, security and war - in light of Russia's invasion of Ukraine: types of heroism, different trajectories of the Ukrainian armed forces and the Russian military, and how the war might play out this year. 

Jenny Mathers on Ukraine war: attitudes to women in the military are changing as thousands serve on front lines

Jenny Mathers on Women and the War in Ukraine

Jenny Mathers on Ukraine war: why Russian soldiers’ mothers aren’t demonstrating the strong opposition they have in previous conflicts

Jenny Mathers on Ukraine war 12 months on: how Volodymyr Zelensky became the nation’s unlikely hero

Jenny Mathers on Ukraine war: what the last 12 months has meant for the ordinary Russian soldier

Jenny Mathers and Veronica Kitchen on Heroism and Global Politics 

Jenny Mathers on twitter: @jgmaber

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Luca Anceschi, Professor of Central and East European Studies at Glasgow University, discusses the way in which Russia's invasion of Ukraine has impacted the Central Asian region: recalibration of relations with Moscow, how the region will navigate relations with both China and Moscow, and how the invasion is being viewed from the region. 

Luca Anceschi on Russia - Central Asian Relations in the Aftermath of the Invasion of Ukraine

Luca Anceschi on Analysing Kazakhstan's Foreign Policy: Regime Neo-Eurasianism in the Nazarbaev Era 

Luca Anceschi on Turkmenistan and the Virtual Politics of Eurasian Energy 

Luca Anceschi on twitter: @anceschitan 

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer 

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Pavel Slunkin, visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, discusses Belarus' position vis-a-vis Russia's invasion of Ukraine, including what Pavel learnt from being present at the Minsk negotiations summit in February 2015, how Lukashenka's relationship with Putin has changed from Russia's territorial incursions into Ukraine in 2014 to Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, how the invasion is viewed from Belarus, and whether Lukashenka would commit Belarus to participate directly in Russia's war in Ukraine.   

More about Pavel Slunkin's work: Pavel Slunkin - European Council on Foreign Relations  

Pavel Slunkin on Why the Belarusian army cannot help Russia in Ukraine 

Pavel Slunkin on Why the Belarusian regime and its people are not one and the same

Pavel Slunkin on Why the West should keep a close eye on Lukashenka

Pavel Slunkin on twitter: @PavelSlunkin

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Ben Herscovitch, Research Fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance, on China's position vis-a-vis Russia and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, how this position might evolve in 2023, and how lessons China is learning from Russia's invasion of Ukraine are likely to shape its approach towards Taiwan in coming years. 

Ben Herscovitch's substack: Beijing to Canberra and back 

Ben Herscovitch on twitter: @B_Herscovitch

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer

Catrina Doxsee, Associate Director and Associate Fellow for the Transnational Threats Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), outlines the relationship between Wagner and the Russian state, why PMCs are not likely to be legalized in Russia, founding and evolution of Wagner, changes in Prigozhin's behavior, and global security implications of Wagner actiivty beyond Russia. 

'The fact that PMCs are not legal in Russia... gives Putin a tremendous amount of leverage over those PMCs...' 

'You have dissent within the ranks... as [Wagner] brings in populations out of prisons there's an intense social stigma between non-prisoners and prisoners in the ranks - as well as between the prisoners themselves given the very strict hierarchy socially in Russian prisons...' 

Catrina Doxsee on Putin's Proxies: Examining Russia's Use of Private Military Companies

Catrina Doxsee and Jared Thompson on The Wagner Group's Mounting Humanitarian Cost in Mali 

Jared Thompson, Catrina Doxsee and Joseph Bermudez on Tracking the Arrival of Russia's Wagner Group in Mali

More on the Transnational Threats Project

Catrina Doxsee on twitter: @catrinadoxsee

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Kanykei Tursunbaeva, journalist, translator and Research Associate at the European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and Mark Neville, award-winning photo journalist working in Ukraine since 2015, discuss operating under conditions of war, taking photos in conflict zones, being a 'war artist' and the project Stop Tanks with Books. 

More about the European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (EUASU)

Special issue of American Behavioral Scientist with EUASU scholars: Special Issue: War in Ukraine  

EUASU fund to support their work: Keep Scholars and Journalists Safe

Postcode Ukraine Charity - mentioned in the epside: Postcode Ukraine 

More about Mark's work: markneville.com

Kanykei Tursunbaeva on twitter: @k_tursunbaeva

Mark Neville on twitter: @NevilleStudio

More about the host: Jessica Genauer 

Niklas Masuhr, Senior Researcher and Military Analyst at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH Zurich University, discusses activities of the Wagner group; comparison of Russian and Chinese PMC activity; the role of the Wagner group in Ukraine and implications for the Russian domestic context. 

Charlotte Hirsbrunner and Niklas Masuhr on: Russia's Footprint in Africa

Allard Duursma and Niklas Masuhr on: Russia’s return to Africa in a historical and global context: Anti-imperialism, patronage, and opportunism

Julia Friedrich and Niklas Masuhr on: Why is Russia Being So Brutal in Ukraine? 

Niklas Masuhr and Benno Zogg on: The War in Ukraine: First Lessons 

Julia Friedrich and Niklas Masuhr on: Mercenaries in the Service of Authoritarian States

Jessica Genauer on twitter: @jessicagenauer

More about the host: Jessica Genauer