the
crisis along ukraine's border
right now
is
about the russian federation
taking an aggressive position
with respect to a former imperial
possession this is now a neighboring
country a neighboring country that's
always privileged the idea of universal
democratic freedom always fought for
that ideal it's very much a part of
their national identity
so at the moment russia is acting the
bully
on the playground and ukraine right now
is vulnerable because it's militarily
weaker
we here in britain need to care for
principled reason and a practical reason
the principle reason is that in 1984
ukraine had the third largest nuclear
arsenal in the world
something like 1700 warheads
ukraine gave up that nuclear arsenal in
exchange for security guarantees from
the united kingdom united states and of
course russia
that was the so-called budapest
memorandum of 1994
because the term
in the burpest memorandum was to provide
assistance if ukraine was ever a victim
of aggression which it is
the other
issue is practical
it goes back to this notion of ukraine
being the largest country within the
continent
a country with over 40 million people
with vast human capital
economic potential and also this very
tenuous position between russia
and the eu coming to grips with that
from a practical perspective is
important for us here in britain as well
and
our analysis sometimes has taken the
bait on the nato question from the
kremlin
russia has taken a view
that grievance and victimization
is what powers their domestic and
foreign policy
and
in looking at this problem with respect
to russia's troop buildup it's not for
nothing that they're not amassing troops
on estonia's border it's not for nothing
nothing that they're
avoiding amassing troops on the bering
strait
they're not challenging nato in that
respect because ukraine is weaker and
it's vulnerable this is a geopolitics of
aggression that threatens everyone it
doesn't just start in ukraine it
threatens us here because the moment we
surrender the ideals of an international
legal order
and we go back to this framework of
might makes right
we're all in trouble
wars by their very nature
defy borders they're rarely confined to
them
it's very easy to see the ingredients
of a broader regional war in the making
here
wars
do not follow an easy clear logic
one
small move can be
immensely disastrous
so i'm worried that in the space of
recklessness that the kremlin has carved
out for itself that there is a chance
for that one mistake that leads to a
broader war in europe
one thing we need to
appreciate is
that this escalation even if
we find that russian troops go back to
their bases and that the threat subsides
another escalation will come because the
logic of russians intervention in
ukraine is a logic of the aggressor
so
i always look first to
culture and civil society
for sources of optimism
ukraine defies expectations
when i traveled there for the first time
in 1995 i thought i had a sense of what
the place was like and on every turn i
found that it surprised me
to learn from these different traditions
religions
to see multilingual culture and action
to see that these divisions that we
often think exist between people
actually overcome on a daily basis these
easy forms of connection are very
prominent in ukraine and at the same
time
ukraine is remarkable for a very very
diverse dynamic culture in civil society
that is game changing i think for europe
more broadly every single framework we
think we bring to bear in studying
european countries
they don't really sit well with ukraine
so one thing we need to do is
come to grips with ukraine on its own
terms if we can actually study the place
understand its people
cast them with the agency they deserve
then i think we as
students scholars the general public
alike
can better appreciate what's at stake
in the conflict in ukraine to understand
it's not just about the relations
between ukraine and russia it's largely
about ukraine
and its aspirations for a european
future that is not a new development as
frequently and over the course of its
history been consumed with joining
europe and being european
the other thing is to come to grips with
how russia acts on the geopolitical
stage it's chosen this role of the bully
we need to be more aware of techniques
and approaches
to on the one hand encourage peace but
stand up to the bully on the
geopolitical playground
we're still learning our way through
this but if we can begin with
understanding ukraine better then we'll
be ready for that
next escalation