Moderated by Terry Martin, George F. Baker Professor of Russian Studies, Department of History, Harvard University and Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute
IN-PERSON and ONLINE via Zoom Webinar (live). Registration is required to attend online. In-person seating will be first-come, first-served.
This special event is organized by HURI as part of the annual Petryshyn Memorial Lecture in Ukrainian Studies series.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine constitutes the largest war in Europe since 1945. It is also the first war to employ drones on a massive scale, both in the air and at sea, and the first major conflict that is widely characterized as hybrid warfare—combining conventional military operations, cyberattacks, and the active use of disinformation. The latter is a key element of the Kremlin’s war propaganda, aimed not least at its own population as well as Ukraine and the outside world.
How important have misuse and abuse of history been in the perpetration and justification of this war, and what are the actual historical causes of the conflict? Why did Putin start the war―and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have valiantly resisted a superior military; meanwhile, the West has been vacillating as Russia colludes with allies in the international arena. The lecture will provide answers to these and related questions by tracing the origins of the Russo-Ukrainian war and explaining the reasons for the return of armed conflict in Europe, the very same part of the world where the Cold War had ended thirty years earlier.
Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo Hrushevs'kyi Professor of History in the Department of History, Harvard University. His research interests include the intellectual, cultural, and international history of Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on Ukraine. He teaches courses and seminars on early modern and modern East European history that engage major problems in the history of Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Lithuania.
Dr. Plokhii's many publications include the following monographs: The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power, and Survival (W. W. Norton, 2025); Chernobyl Roulette: War in the Nuclear Disaster Zone (W. W. Norton, 2024); The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History (W. W. Norton, 2023); Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters (W. W. Norton, 2022); Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (W. W. Norton, 2021); Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen behind the Soviet Lines and the Collapse of the Grand Alliance (Oxford University Press, 2019); Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe (Basic Books, 2018); The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (Basic Books, 2015); The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union (Basic Books, 2015); The Cossack Myth: History and Nationhood in the Age of Empires (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Yalta: The Price of Peace (Viking/Penguin, 2010; 2011); Ukraine and Russia: Representations of the Past (University of Toronto Press, 2008); and The Origins of the Slavic Nations: Premodern Identities in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus (Cambridge University Press, 2006).
His books have won numerous awards, including the Lionel Gelber Prize (2015), Antonovych Prize (2015), the Pushkin House Book Prize (2015 and 2019), Ballie Gifford Prize (2018), the Shevchenko National Prize (2018), and the Arenberg Prize (2024). Oxford University awarded Dr. Plokhii an honorary degree in 2025.