Russia's Invasion of Ukraine: The Conundrum of Chronology

 

When did the war in Ukraine begin: 1654, 1991, or 2021?

 

Join us on September 30, as Kennan Institute Director Michael Kimmage, considers three possible points of origin for the war and examines how the chronology we choose shapes our explanations of it. The lecture will also explore the difficulty of conducting chronological analysis without solid empirical evidence, a challenge extending from academic research on Russia to intelligence analysis and policymaking.

 

 

 

Michael Kimmage, the founding director of an independent Kennan Institute, was appointed the director of the Kennan Institute at the Wilson Center in January 2025. He is a professor of history at the Catholic University of America, and has had think-tank appointments at the German Marshall Fund and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. From 2014 to 2016, he served on the Secretary’s Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State, where he held the Russia/Ukraine portfolio. He is the author, among other books, of The Conservative Turn: Lionel Trilling, Whittaker Chambers and the Lessons of Anti-Communism (Harvard University Press, 2009), The Abandonment of the West: The History of an Idea in American Foreign Policy (Basic Books, 2020) and Collisions: The War in Ukraine and the Origins of the New Global Instability (Oxford University Press, 2024).