War, Identity, and the New Shape of the Ukraine Conflict

War, Identity, and the New Shape of the Ukraine Conflict

A compact, evidence-based bundle on why the war began, how identities—not NATO—drove escalation, and what three years of fighting taught the world. British-Ukrainian scholar Dr. Taras Kuzio maps the ideological engines behind Moscow’s invasion (imperial nationalism, Soviet nostalgia, anti-Western xenophobia, and diverging Russian–Ukrainian identities). Dr. Anatol Lieven distills battlefield lessons: drones, satellite ISR, minefields, and why attritional defense now dominates. Together they connect narratives, sanctions-busting networks, and alliance politics to the hard military reality.

You will learn to:
• identify four ideological “roots” of the invasion and trace how “Russkiy Mir,” Church politics, and dehumanization narratives enabled war;
• separate myth from evidence (NATO “promises,” “one people,” “Novorossiya”) and explain why identity divergence since 1991 matters more than enlargement;
• analyze sanctions, evasion routes, and the “shadow fleet,” and assess how a loose Russia–Iran–DPRK alignment works with China’s hedge;
• brief military takeaways for NATO: why artillery shells, mines, and UAVs beat prestige platforms; how ISR kills surprise; and what that implies for the Black Sea and East Asia.

What’s inside (5 lectures):
• Four Roots of Russia’s War on Ukraine — Imperial nationalism, Soviet nostalgia, anti-Western xenophobia, and identity/regime divergence; “denazification” unpacked.
• Diverging Identities since 1991 — Civic Ukraine vs. imperial Russia; memory politics (decommunization vs. restalinization); collapse of pro-Russian parties after 2014.
• Memory, Myths, and Maps — “Novorossiya,” Church and “Holy Rus’,” and how dehumanization normalized aggression (Q&A on negotiations and “root causes”).
• The West in the Mirror — Sanctions and sanction-busting (Caucasus/Central Asia–UAE–Turkey–Greece’s “shadow fleet”), nuclear rhetoric, and the new axis with China’s hedge.
• Military Lessons of the Ukraine War — Why the blitz failed; drones + mines + ISR; attrition logic; limits of airpower; NATO planning and Asia analogies.

Speakers

Dr. Taras Kuzio — British-Ukrainian political scientist (Ukraine, Russia, post-Soviet studies). Former Director of NATO’s Information & Documentation Centre (Kyiv); taught at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy; Senior Research Fellow, Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies; author of Russian Nationalism and the Russian-Ukrainian War (2022).

Dr. Anatol Lieven — Director, Eurasia Program, Quincy Institute; former professor at Georgetown University (Qatar). Author of The Baltic Revolutions (Orwell Prize), Pakistan: A Hard Country, Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry, Climate Change and the Nation State; published in the Financial Times, The New York Times, and Foreign Affairs.

Start with these lectures—finish with your own forecast (Bayesian tools, causal models, workshops, practitioner feedback).