Nicolai N. Petro, Professor of Political Science at University of Rhode Island, and Senior Washington Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy. Author of “The Tragedy of Ukraine: What Classical Greek Tragedy Can Teach Us About Conflict Resolution” (2023). Served as an adviser and professor in Russia (1989-1990, 1996-1997), and in Ukraine (2013-2014. He has visited Ukraine yearly from 2010 through 2021.
Professor Petro will discuss his deep knowledge of and experience in Ukraine over the past 11 years, focusing on the deep divisions between eastern and western Ukrainians. These divisions culminated in an armed insurgency in the Donbass region against the central government in Kiev, which was increasingly seen as restricting and threatening their linguistic, religious, political, cultural, and economic rights.
He asserts that the war can be ended and a lasting peace achieved if these divisions are understood, respected, and resolved through a process of conflict resolution similar to that used by the ancient Greeks to reconcile some of their bitter differences that led to war.
3 Comments
Mr Petro
With greatest respect, I am at odds with your poetic assessment comparing the Russo/Ukrainian conflict with the Peloponnesian wars. Maybe years from now or decades but I see it very differently.
The US's template for the over throw of governments has been laid bare for the world to see. Mr Petro where were you when John McCain and Linsey Graham address the crowd in Kiev and Victoria Nuland passed out cookies and in the wings the NED was passing out freshly printed $100 bills..
This war was an orchestration by US/NATO. Ukraine's independence was not won through conflict but from around a conference table. It was a hasty and not carefully done and it was no doubt to cause trouble eventually. It was the Soviets that drew the border of Ukraine. It included a number of other ethnic minorities.
Americans know almost nothing of what Russia suffered at the hands of the Germans 1941 to 1945. 27 million dead has touched every family in Russia and the Ukraine. This is their national narrative…
You talk of Thucydides when it was the US that has compelled Russia and China into an alliance, Involved with Israel in a genocidal conflict in West Asia, Obligated to help the French in Saharan Africa, announcing war with China by 2027..And now Russia has broken the 60 year long blockade of Cuba… Who is in a Thucydidies Trap?
3yrs in, even as the narrative in the u.s. switches to peace, nato countries are talking about preparing for war. It’s incredible how enthusiastic parts of Europe are in prolonging and escalating war on their continent. Desire to see Russia defeated and humiliated is truly insane, perhaps even suicidal.
It seems to me, that a completely collapsed state on border is preferable to a NATO state these days.