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The John Batchelor Show

VICCTORY PLAN UNWELCOMED: : 3/8: The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History. by Serhii Plokhy (Author)

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.5 • 2.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 October 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

VICCTORY PLAN UNWELCOMED: : 3/8: The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History. by  Serhii Plokhy  (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Russo-Ukrainian-War-Return-History/dp/1324051191
Despite repeated warnings from the White House, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 shocked the world. Why did Putin start the war―and why has it unfolded in previously unimaginable ways? Ukrainians have resisted a superior military; the West has united, while Russia grows increasingly isolated.

Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault―on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament―the roots of this conflict can be traced back even earlier, to post-Soviet tensions and imperial collapse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a broad historical context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia’s ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable.

Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has remained central to Russia’s idea of itself even as Ukrainians have followed a radically different path. In a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post–Cold War international order, and a resurgence of populist nationalism, Ukraine is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

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That's better help help dot com. This is a series of CDSI in the world. I'm John Bachelor with Professor Serhi Ploki,

0:40.0

professor of Ukrainian history director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University.

0:45.0

His new book is the Russo-Ukraineian War, The Return of History.

0:49.0

The decision is made at the Kremlin by Vladimir Putin, his state security chiefs watching. On the

0:56.2

27th, what we call now the little green man appear, gunman, in Crimea. A man named Exenov is identified by the Kremlin as to be the new

1:09.6

Prime Minister of the Crimean Parliament. This is very much an annexation by brute force of Crimea.

1:17.0

The puzzlement now reading the professor's timeline here is what the U.S. did, what NATO did, how they reacted to what was clearly

1:26.4

an intention to brutalize and tear apart Ukraine.

1:29.7

Professor, I know that there are second thoughts everywhere, but your measure today, did NATO go along

1:38.2

with the Crimean annexation because it was anxious about war, it was not ready to worry it hadn't anticipated

1:45.3

that Putin would go that far why was there not the protest I know there were

1:50.5

sanctions but not the protest at the level we see today with a similar brutality by Russia.

1:57.8

I'm personally convinced that if reaction to the annexation of the Crimea would be on the same level as was the

2:08.0

reaction to the start of the all-out war against Ukraine in February of 2022.

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