(Video) Ukrainian and Russian academics discuss the war

First published at The Real News Network.


Debates over the proper approach to the Russo-Ukrainian War have dominated much of the year. Yet discussions within the western left have not always featured the perspectives of Ukrainians and Russians themselves. The Real News Network board member Bill Fletcher, in partnership with Haymarket Books, hosts a panel with Ukrainian and Russian academics.

Yuliya Yurchenko is a senior lecturer and researcher in political economy at the Political Economy, Governance, Finance and Accountability Institute and the Economics and International Business Department, the University of Greenwich (UK). She is the author of Ukraine and the Empire of Capital: From Marketisation to Armed Conflict (London: Pluto Press, 2018) and many other publications, including in Capital and Class and New Political Economy. She is vice-chair of the Critical Political Economy Research Network Board (European Sociological Association), co-coordinator of the World Economy working group, IIPPE, and an editor for Capital and Class.

Alona Liasheva is a PhD candidate in Urban Studies (URBEUR) at University of Milan-Bicocca focusing on housing in Eastern Europe. She is a co-editor of Commons: Journal for Social Criticism.

Ilya Budraitskis writes regularly on politics, art, film and philosophy for e-flux journal, openDemocracy, LeftEast, Colta.ru and other outlets, and teaches at the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and the Institute of Contemporary Art Moscow. The Russian edition of his essay collection Dissidents among Dissidents was awarded the prestigious Andrei Bely prize in 2017.