UPDATED 03/04/14: UBC researchers are available for commentary on the escalating crisis in Ukraine.
POLITICS
Anastasiya Salnykova (in Kyiv)
PhD candidate, UBC Dept. of Political Science
Contact via UBC Public Affairs: 604.822.2048, basil.waugh@ubc.ca
- Russian and Ukrainian politics
- Ethnic relations in Ukraine
“Russia has committed open military aggression against Ukraine,” says Salnykova, a Ukrainian citizen and UBC scholar in Kyiv since last year. “Russia claims to be responding to requests from the Ukrainian Russian population for protection from radical nationalists. However, there has been no evidence of violence or human rights violations against Russians in Ukraine — or any need for such a request.”
Allen Sens
Dept. of Political Science
Tel: 604.822.6127
Email: asens@politics.ubc.ca
- Geopolitics
- Military and security
Allan Craigie
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dept. of Political Science
Email: Allan.craigie@ubc.ca
Tel. 604.822.4731
“The invasion of Crimea stems not just from an attempt to secure a strategic Russian position, it comes from a resurgence of Russian ethnic nationalism that is resentful at losing the Cold War and the loss of superpower status under the last Russian Empire, the Soviet Union,” says Craigie. “It desperately desires to reclaim that kind of respect/power in the international arena, and is very resentful of the West which not only won the Cold War, but is seen as encroaching and expanding into Russia’s traditional imperial sphere of influence.”
- Nationalist mobilizations
- Canadian domestic politics
Arjun Chowdhury
Dept. of Political Science
Tel: 604.822.1480
Email: arjun.chowdhury@ubc.ca
- Difficult path to ‘new’ democracy in Ukraine (read the full Q&A)
- Autocratic regimes and the transition to democracy
“It is too early to declare a verdict on transitions [of some autocratic regimes like Ukraine] towards democracy,” says Chowdhury. Many states fluctuate between democracy, autocracy and partial democracy, such as in regimes where there are elections, but leaders face few checks on power.
Lisa Sundstrom
Dept. of Political Science
Tel: 604.822.6331
Email: lisa.sundstrom@ubc.ca
- Russia and politics
- Democracy and human rights
- Development and social justice
Dasha Prykhodko
Lecturer of Russian, Dept. of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies
Tel: 604.822.6604
Email: dariyap@mail.ubc.ca
“This is a crucial moment for the Ukraine,” says Prykhodko. The Orange Revolution in 2004 has taught the Ukrainian people that getting rid of an unwanted president does not necessarily solve problems. It is very important now to make sure that the new government will be a real people’s government, and not just a change of names and faces based on the same corrupted system.”
Bozena Karwowska
Dept. of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies
Tel : 604-822-5956
Email: bozena@mail.ubc.ca
- Interaction between politics and literature
- Slavic literatures and cultures
BUSINESS
Viktoria Hnatkovska (born in Ukraine)
UBC’s Vancouver School of Economics
Tel. 604.822.2408
Email: Viktoriya.Hnatkovska@ubc.ca
- Economic impacts of the crisis
Keith Head
Sauder School of Business
Tel: 604 822-8492
Email: keith.head@sauder.ubc.ca
- Impacts on International trade/business