Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, a vicious war of aggression and occupation has devastated the nation. Determined resistance to the invasion has denied Russia many of its intended targets, but Ukrainians have suffered tremendous losses. What are the human and other costs of the Russian invasion of Ukraine? [ due: 28mins. ]

• Serhiy Kudelia is Associate Professor of Political Science at Baylor University. He is the author of When Numbers Are Not Enough: The Strategic Use of Violence in Ukraine’s 2014 Revolution, “The Donbas Rift” and “How They Joined? Militants and Informers in the Armed Conflict in Ukraine“.
• Tymofii Brik is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Economic History at Kyiv School of Economics. He is the author of Thirty Years of Religious Pluralism in Ukraine and co-author of Attitudes About Privatization and the Shadow of Communism: 25 Years of Anti-market Skepticism.

The impact of the February Russian invasion of Ukraine extends beyond just those two nations. Russia has dominated the post-Soviet space—the independent nations that were once a part of the Soviet Union. A Russian foreign policy has attempted to ensure that the nation is the indispensable partner of these nations. But the invasion has fractured this image and poses significant challenges to Russian influence over its former Soviet Union partners.

How has this invasion damaged the legitimacy of Russia’s interventions in other conflicts across the post Soviet space? What does this mean to these conflicts? And how has this war called into question Russia’s influence in this area? [ dur: 30mins. ]

• Anna Ohanyan is the Richard B. Finnegan Distinguished Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Stonehill College. She is the editor of Russia Abroad: Driving Regional Fracture in Post-Communist Eurasia and Beyond and her latest book The Neighborhood Effect: The Imperial Roots of Regional Fracture in Post-Communist Eurasia.
• Erica Marat is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Regional and Analytical Studies Department at the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University. She is the author of The Politics of Police Reform: Society against the State in Post-Soviet Countries and “Time to Question Russia’s Imperial Innocence.”

This program is produced by Ankine Aghassian, Doug Becker, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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We discuss the situation on the ground in Ukraine, human rights violations, such as war crimes, and what is needed to end the war. [ dur: 29mins. ]

• Sasha Romantsova is the Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine. She joins us from Kiev, Ukraine.
• Steve Swerdlow is Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights in the Department of Political and International Relations at the University of Southern California (USC). He was Senior Central Asia researcher at Human Rights Watch. He has conducted extensive field work internationally with a particular focus on Central Asia and the Caucuses.

Ukrainian refugees are fleeing the war by the hundreds of thousands. Poland is their most common destination. How is Poland responding and what does this mean for its refugee policies? We explore the refugee crisis and its impact on Poland. [ dur: 29mins. ]

• Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska is a freelance journalist who covers covers politics and societies across the post-Soviet space, South Asia and the Middle East. Her articles are published on Al Jazeera English, the Guardian, Eurasianet, the Diplomat and many other English and Polish language media. She is the co-editor of Ukraine and Russia: People, Politics, Propaganda and Perspectives and Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two-Country Perspective..

This program is produced by Maria Armoudian, Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Melissa Chiprin and Sudd Dongre.

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