Ukrainian Public Opinion and the War
As the war in Ukraine moves into a possibly critical phase with the likelihood of upcoming Ukrainian and Russian offensives, it is imperative that American policymakers and commentators develop a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the attitudes of ordinary Ukrainians to issues of war and peace. To discuss and analyze Ukrainian public opinion, including in the areas occupied by Russia, the Quincy Institute is hosting a panel with leading scholars and journalists with first hand knowledge about opinion in Ukraine, including Volodymyr Ishchenko of the Freie Universitaet Berlin, Gerard Toal of Virginia Tech, and freelance journalist Albina Kovalyova, whose latest project is a documentary of a Ukrainian family living under Russian occupation. The discussion will be moderated by Anatol Lieven, Director of the Eurasia Program at the Quincy Institute.
Program
Panelists
Volodymyr Ishchenko
Volodymyr Ishchenko is a Ukrainian research associate at the Institute of East European Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. His research has focused on protests and social movements, revolutions, radicalization, right and left politics, nationalism, civil society. He is the author of numerous articles and interviews published in Post-Soviet Affairs, Globalizations, New Left Review, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, and Jacobin. He is currently working on a collective monograph "The Maidan Uprising: Mobilization, Radicalization, and Revolution in Ukraine, 2013-14."
Gerard Toal
Gerard Toal (Gearóid Ó Tuathail) is a Political Geographer and Professor at Virginia Tech. He has published widely on geopolitics and territorial conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union. He is the author of Near Abroad: Putin, the West and the Contest for Ukraine and the Caucasus and the forthcoming Oceans Rise Empires Fall: Why Geopolitics Hastens Climate Catastrophe, both published by Oxford University Press.
Albina Kovalyova
Albina Kovalyova is a British documentary director/producer, with a focus on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe. During her career, she has worked as a television news journalist as well as a director and producer of documentary films. She currently works for BBC Eye Investigations. Her latest documentary, “Occupied,” is a personal account of a family living under Russian occupation in Ukraine.
Anatol Lieven (Moderator)
Anatol Lieven is Eurasia program director and senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was formerly a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar and in the War Studies Department of King’s College, London. He is a member of the advisory committee of the South Asia Department of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. From 1985 to 1998, Lieven worked as a journalist in South Asia, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe and covered the wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and the southern Caucasus.