Russia’s War Against Ukraine
| |||||||||
The five sessions of the colloquy will be divided roughly as follows:
- 1036 years of Russian-Ukrainian history. The Russian Empire. History disputes and memory wars.
- Bloodlands: the horrific and tumultuous twentieth century in Ukraine.
- Putin and his worldview: Making Russia Great Again. The West and NATO as Russia’s forever enemy. The Kiev uprisings – national revolution or Western plot? 2014: the war begins. How Putin created the Ukrainian nation.
- Invasion, February 2022. Miscalculations: the Ukrainian surprise and Western unity. Sanctions and military aid to Ukraine. Russia’s energy weapon fails. Patriotic Russians applaud the war. Zelensky’s leadership. Nationalism, hate, and endurance.
- International consequences. The European surprise. Russia and China. The effort to unite the Rest against the West. Will Western unity hold?
Seth Singleton studied Russian history and literature at Harvard and political science at Yale. He has held grants from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Council on Soviet and East European Research, the Kennan Institute, the Fulbright program, and the Open Society Institute. He was faculty research associate at the Harvard Russian Research Center (now the Davis Center) and academic dean in universities in the US and overseas. He has worked in Tanzania, Ecuador, and Vietnam, consulted in China, Mongolia, and Bolivia, and traveled to all regions of the former Soviet Union. In 1991 and 1992 he lived and taught in Ekaterinburg and St. Petersburg, watching the Soviet Union come apart and working with Russian colleagues to rebuild communist institutions for the new Russian government.
Syllabus/Reading
Session 1 – September 9, 2024:
Discussion: Why Ukraine matters
History I: 988 to 1900. Are Ukrainians and Russians one people?
Peoples, states, nations, empires
Putin On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians
Session 2- September 16, 2024
Discussion: History II: The terrible, turbulent 20th century.
Snyder Phony Grievances and Ancient Myths
Session 3 – September 23, 2024
Discussion: Putin; his worldview, his methods, his society, his geopolitical aims
Ukrainian nationalism and the evolution of Volodymyr Zelensky
Of the readings, Plokhy is the best source on what has happened in Ukraine after independence. Taubman’s piece on Putin is excellent, and I’ve added a few Putin quotations. Alexander Dugin presents Russia’s “Eurasianist” worldview: he seems extreme until you consider that Putin’s war propagandists now sound much like him. Also included are Mearsheimer’s famous article on “The West is to Blame” and another by Mary Sarotte on the promises made to Gorbachev about non-expansion of NATO. Historian Stephen Kotkin replies to the “Realists” who don’t get it about the roots of Putin’s thinking and the pattern of Russian history. Finally, I include copies of the draft treaties submitted to the US and to NATO on the eve of the 2022 invasion, which make quite clear that the war is not only about Ukraine.
Taubman How Putin Learned to Hold Deadly Grudges
Sarotte What the West told Moscow
Russia draft treaties with the US and NATO December 2021
Mearsheimer Ukraine is West’s Fault
Dugin The War on Russia in its Ideological Dimension
Session 4 – September 30, 2024
Discussion: Invasion and war
“I need ammunition, not a ride”
Ukraine from euphoria to endurance and survival.
Putin finds Russia’s true calling is war: ideology, economy, society
The Western alliance holds and shakes and holds and shakes . . .
Russia’s pivot to Asia
Lessons: sanctions, munitions and drones, patriotism, information control
Putin’s worldview – notes for Sep 30
Session 5 – October 7, 2024
Discussion: A new world?
Lenin’s dream, Putinized
Europe reacts to the return of war
A Eurasian alliance against the West?
China’s game
Trump looms. The Americans go wobbly
Scenarios and prospects
Edel, Putin Has Victory in his Grasp
Gabuev Russia reorients to China
Lokker and Johnston, EU is a bigger threat than NATO
Putin says long range weapons mean war with NATO
Santora, The loss of Vuhledar, Oct 1 2024 NYTimes
Walt Russia Intentions Unclear
Background books
One of the joys of a colloquy is that there is no assigned homework. But there certainly are suggestions.
Serhii Plokhy, The Russo-Ukrainian War (2023). 303 p. Amazon, $15.54.
Plokhy is Harvard’s professor of Ukrainian history. He grew up and attended university in Ukraine. This book is particularly good on an often neglected part of the story, Ukraine’s nationalist and democratic evolution from its 1991 independence to the 2022 Russian invasion. With a bit more lead time, I would “assign” this book as background reading.
Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe (2021). 366 p. Amazon, $12.99.
The big book of Ukrainian history, from the Varangians to Zelensky and Putin.
Simon Shuster, The Showman (2024). 319 p. Amazon, $20.49
A biography of Zelensky and an account of the first phase of the war. Shuster is a Russian-speaking American journalist who was with Zelensky during the invasion. His insider portrait is both admiring and critical – Zelensky is no saint.
Fiona Hill and Clifford Gaddy, Mr. Putin (2nd edition, 2015). 273 p. Amazon, $21.41
The best analysis of Putin and his worldview. Hill, a notable and brilliant Russia hand, was the National Security Council director for Russia until she resigned in 2019 over disagreement with then President Trump.
Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin(2010).437 p. Amazon$17.49
With remarkable scholarship and a passion for humanity, Snyder tells us what actually happened in eastern Europe in 1930-47. This terrible era is replayed in today’s “memory wars.” Putin calls Ukrainians “nazis” and suppresses mention of Stalin’s collusion with Hitler – trying to rewrite history as Russian war propaganda.
Current materials – keeping up with events
I follow two free daily websites. One is the Institute for the Study of War daily bulletin on the war in Ukraine, at
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/ukraine-conflict-updates
ISW has the latest on the military situation and “information operations” connected to it.
The other is Meduza, a Russian opposition website, now based in Latvia,
Meduza has interesting stuff on what’s happening in Russia, for example how much contract soldiers are paid or demonstrations in remote regions or the new “patriotic” textbooks for schoolkids.
US and Western policy essays on Ukraine appear on the website of Foreign Policy
But Foreign Policy is not free.
Also, generally good coverage appears on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
For the Russian government view, go to RT (Russia Today)
▼ Registration