Transformation of Europe after Russian aggression into Ukraine

Transformation of Europe after Russian aggression into Ukraine

Speaker: Mitchell A. Orenstein, Professor of Russian and East European Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Opening words: Dr Svetluša Surová, Founder and Senior Researcher, MIRI and Dr Daniela Škútová, Senior Researcher, MIRI 

Moderator: Dr Mirsad Kriještorac, Senior Researcher, MIRI

Mitchell A. Orenstein is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and a Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His sole-authored and co-authored works on the political economy and international affairs of Central and Eastern Europe have won numerous prizes.

This seminar is organized by the Minority Issues Research Institute (MIRI) and co-hosted by the Department of Political Science of The Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations, Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. 

Abstract

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24

February 2022 shattered any remaining

illusions that closer economic integration with

Europe would lead Russia, over time, towards

democracy at home and peaceful coexistence

with its neighbours abroad. It reinvigorated

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO) and jolted the European Union (EU)

into cutting off trade and energy ties with

Russia while welcoming a massive flow of

refugees from war-torn Ukraine. It

empowered Central and East European states

in the EU, reignited enlargement debates, and

shifted NATO and Europe’s borders to the

north and east. The EU’s peace through

integration strategy has always existed side

by side with NATO’s peace through-strength

approach, in a broader European project with

blurred boundaries. This war may force the

EU to solidify its borders between an internal

zone of integration and an external zone of

strength projection and geopolitics.