This first edition of PONARS Strategic Conversation will address how priorities, perceptions, and preferences have changed in the two years since the full-scale invasion. What does a protracted war look like for both Ukraine and Russia? Is a cease-fire possible, and if so what would it look like? What do defeat and victory mean for each country? How are Ukrainian politics and society dealing with the difficulties of securing more solid Western support? Join our experts for a general reassessment of the state of the war at two years.
Speakers:
Olga Oliker is Program Program Director for Europe and Central Asia, at Crisis Group, an independent organisation working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world. She leads the organization’s research, analysis, policy prescription and advocacy in and about Russia, Europe, Türkiye, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. Oliker’s own research interests center on the foreign and security policies of Russia, Ukraine, and the Central Asian and Caucasian successor states to the Soviet Union, domestic politics in these countries, U.S. policy towards the region, and nuclear weapon strategy and arms control.
Samuel Charap is a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation. His research interests include the foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states; European and Eurasian regional security; and U.S.-Russia deterrence, strategic stability, and arms control. Charap’s book on the Ukraine crisis, Everyone Loses: The Ukraine Crisis and the Ruinous Contest for Post-Soviet Eurasia (coauthored with Timothy Colton), was published in January 2017. His articles have appeared in The Washington Quarterly, Foreign Affairs, Survival, Current History, and several other journals.
Moderator:
David Szakonyi is co-director of PONARS, Associate Professor of Political Science at George Washington University, and co-founder of the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. His academic research focuses on corruption, corporate governance, and clientelism in Russia, Western Europe, and the United States. His most recent book — Politics for Profit: Business, Elections, and Policymaking in Russia (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics, 2020) — examines why businesspeople run for political office and how their firms benefit. In addition to his academic work, he has led numerous investigations into political corruption and opacity in the private equity and real estate industries published in the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, the Daily Beast, and Le Monde, among other many outlets.