Get Read In: Russia + Ukraine
As events unfold in Eastern Europe, get up to speed and explore a diversity of viewpoints with these sources curated by members of the History & Social Science Department at Deerfield Academy (click headlines for links)
The Reason Putin Would Risk War
But they are all a part of the same story: They are the ideological answer to the trauma that Putin and his generation of KGB officers experienced in 1989.
Anne Applebaum is a staff writer at The Atlantic, a fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism.
Scenario Analysis on a Ukrainian Insurgency
Europe is threatening sanctions and promising disgrace for Moscow, but it may soon face the most difficult question of retaliation: whether to provide vital support for a Ukrainian insurgency.
Emily Harding is deputy director and a senior fellow with the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.
Former US Air Force Special Operations Pilot Reporting from Ukraine
It will be one of the great crimes of our time if the democracies of the world let this invasion happen…Have we learned nothing since World War II?
Nolan Peterson is a war reporter based in Ukraine since 2014
The Saddest Irony of Putin’s War on Ukraine
Ukrainians have a long tradition of disrespect for the government. Criticism of the authorities is in our blood… But the more Putin pushes, the more united the country becomes. We have to do everything we can to resist.
Nataliya Gumenyuk, the founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab, is a Ukrainian author and journalist specializing in foreign affairs and conflict reporting.
Are We on the Brink of All Out Financial War with Russia?
Sanctions against Russia’s central bank would be tantamount to full-scale financial war. The prospect evokes memories of the chaos of the 1990s.
Adam Tooze holds the Shelby Cullom Davis chair of History at Columbia University and serves as Director of the European Institute.
How Ukrainians View this Perilous Moment
If you stretch out your hand to Russia, they will take the whole arm.
Michael Schwartz is an investigative reporter with the New York Times. He was a lead reporter on a team that won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles about Russian intelligence operations around the world.
Ukraine Shrinks Again
Just because Putin asserts these things does not mean they are not true. I believe they are true.
Tony Kevin is a former Australian ambassador to Poland and Cambodia, and an emeritus fellow at Australian National University.
China Adjusts, and Readjusts, Its Embrace of Russia in Ukraine Crisis
After a persistent dismissal of the risk of invasion, Xi Jinping calls on Putin to negotiate with Kyiv
Lingling Wei is the chief China correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and co-author of Superpower Showdown.
How Will Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine Hit the Global Economy?
Soaring energy prices alone could tip the world into a second recession in three years
At the Financial Times, Chris Giles is economics editor, Jonathan Wheatley is emerging markets correspondent, and Valentina Romei is economics reporter.
Wheat and Deep Ports: The Long History of Putin's Incursion into Ukraine
This is not the first conflict over the Black Sea and if the world survives this one, it will not be the last.
Scott Reynolds Nelson is the Georgia Athletic Association Professor of History at the University of Georgia and the author of Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade The World (2022), about the Russian and American contest over the international market for wheat
What's at Stake in Ukraine? The Direction of Human History
When the Soviet Union collapsed, history seemed to guarantee that Ukrainians would again go down the path of brutal tyranny—what else did they know? But they chose differently.
Yuval Noah Harari is a lecturer in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s history department and co-founder of Sapienship, a social-impact company.
Putin’s Hitler-like Tricks and Tactics in Ukraine
It is hard to think of something darker than invading a democracy with a Jewish leader in the name of fighting Nazis.
Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University and the author of a half-dozen books on Russia and Ukraine.
Putin’s Memory Laws Set the Stage for His War in Ukraine
It might seem somewhat irrelevant to debate history during an extreme crisis, while the Russian military is bombing Ukrainian cities. But narratives matter. Putin understands this, and we should too.
Francine Hirsch is Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal After World War II (Oxford, 2020).
Freedom, Restraint, and the Ukraine Crisis
Military intervention should only be used to counter true security threats to the nation, while restraint is critical to maintaining a free society in the United States and to avoiding reckless and costly foreign entanglements.
Peter Goettler is president and CEO, and Robert Levy is chairman of the board of directors, at the Cato Institute.
Russia Just Seized Chernobyl. Here's Why It Matters.
A nuclear reactor is a vulnerable source of energy because it relies on peace and stability.
Kate Brown is a Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future.
What Russian Aggression in Ukraine Means for Southeast Asia
Southeast Asian countries are keeping quiet as Moscow junks the concept that all nations are equally sovereign.
Zachary Abuza is a professor at the National War College in Washington and an adjunct at Georgetown University.
PUTIN'S REVENGE (2017)
Putin has strutted back onto the stage, you know, shoulders back, saying, “Russia is here.” But he’s also created a terrible backlash, and I don’t think we know yet where that’s going to lead.
Documentary filmmaker Michael Kirk has produced more than 200 national television programs, was the original senior producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’s flagship long-form documentary series, and has won every major award in broadcast journalism.