University family is welcome to a panel discussion on the Russian-Ukrainian war

On Thursday, 31 March, from 16:15–18:00, a panel discussion on the Russian-Ukrainian war takes place at the Delta Centre. It is organised by Ukrainian students and staff members of the University of Tartu together with the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies and aims to give fellow students and colleagues background knowledge on Eastern European politics to help them make sense of the current war. 

A brutal war unleashed by the Russian Federation has been raging in Ukraine for more than a month. The media is dominated by news about Ukraine. Launching a war is unjustifiable, and many of us find it difficult to understand the reasoning behind it. The panel discussion aims to analyse it and provide some background on the politics of Eastern Europe. 

The discussion focuses on the following questions:  

• Why did Russia invade Ukraine? 

• What are Putin’s goals and are these achievable? 

• What to make of the claim that “NATO and the EU provoked Russian aggression by expanding to Eastern Europe”? 

• What explains Ukraine’s valiant resistance? 

• How does Russian mass media depict the situation and justify Russia’s actions? 

• What is the role of Belarus in all of this?  

• What are the long-term implications of this war? 

Panellists include Research Fellow in Digital Governance Dmytro Khutkyy, Professor of Comparative Politics Piret Ehin and Lecturer in Politics of Baltic Sea Region Countries Heiko Pääbo from the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, Associate Professor in Public Administration Olga Matveieva from the Dnipro University of Technology, and Katsiaryna Lozka, PhD Fellow at Ghent University. 

Brief presentations by the panellists will be followed by Q&A and discussion with the audience. The event is moderated by Lecturer in Artificial Intelligence Dmytro Fishman from the Institute of Computer Science.   

The event takes place at the Delta Centre and will not be recorded or broadcast. To participate, registratin was open by noon (12:00) on Wednesday, 30 March.