In February 2022, Russian forces launched a massive invasion of Ukraine, beginning the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II. In this roundtable, four historians of the region will cast light on events in Ukraine and Russia, discussing both the lessons of Ukrainian, Russian, Soviet, and Eastern European history for the understanding of the conflict and the impact of the conflict on the field of history.

The exact topics of the roundtable will be determined closer to the panel, depending on the state of the crisis in January 2023. Possible themes include the history of the Ukrainian nation; Russian-Ukrainian relations in historical perspective; the legacies of Soviet history and of the collapse of the Soviet Union; the place of Putin, his dictatorship, and his propaganda in Russian and Soviet history; the legacies of World War II; and the impact of the crisis and war on the fields of Ukrainian and Russian history.