21. The War on Ukraine and Future of Russia

At this event, Sergei Medvedev will present his latest book, A War Made in Russia, which was just published by Polity Press (Cambridge). In this book, he argues that Russia’s war on Ukraine was not started by President Vladimir Putin out of a personal whim or obsession. Rather, Medvedev claims, the war was the culmination of two decades of authoritarian degradation and post-imperial ressentiment but also of Russia’s entire imperial history. That is why, Russia has accepted and normalized this war, turned it into a daily routine, and seems ready to fight it for years.
The book presentation will be followed by a public discussion focusing on three questions:
How stable is the current pro-war consensus among Russia’s elites and society, and for how long can Russia’s economy sustain this war?
What are the possible end-states of this war, and what do they mean for the future of Russia and Ukraine?
Can this war lead to World War Three - or are we already there?
Sergei Medvedev is an affiliated professor at the Faculty of Arts at Charles University. From 2004 to 2020 he worked as a professor at HSE University in Moscow. A graduate of Moscow State University and Columbia University in New York City, Medvedev has held multiple research and academic positions in Russia, Germany, Italy, and Finland, and authored a number of books, including the prize-winning Return of the Russian Leviathan (Návrat ruského Leviathana, 2021).

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