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Why Did Russia Invade Ukraine? With the world on the brink of nuclear war, Dr. Fiona Hill and Prof. Hilary Appel grappled with the major questions in a discussion at the Ath
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n early March, mere weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an invasion of Ukraine, instigating the largest military conflict since World War II, Dr. Fiona Hill analyzed the crisis for a packed audience at CMC’s Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum.
Hill shared her deep expertise on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, based on her years serving three presidents, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump, and as senior director for European and Russian affairs on the U.S. National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.
Hilary Appel, the Podlich Family Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow, and director of the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College, moderated the conversation. The Ath discussion and the student Q&A covered a breadth of issues from the U.S. response, to China’s part in the crisis, and the potential legacies of this war, with Appel drawing upon questions that arose during her own classroom discussions.
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“So, why did Russia invade Ukraine?” Appel asked Hill. “This is of course the major question that everyone has been grappling with,” Hill said. “I want to say first of all that Russia, per se, hasn’t done this. This is a decision made by one man and a small group around Vladimir Putin, and has a lot to do with the way he thinks about the world.” That viewpoint has its roots in history, Hill said, going back to the 17th century and the Treaty of Andrusovo when parts of Ukraine were given to Russia. She added, “Putin clearly believes that there needs to be some kind of reversal of the consequences of the dissolution of the Soviet Union” in 1991, which he called “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe” of the 20th century. Appel shared that she feels “Putin… has so much to lose if he fails in Ukraine. If he fails in Ukraine, he cannot survive as the Russian president…. He will fight to the bitter end, and he will use every weapon at his disposal to do so. Given the danger of escalation, what can the United States do to prevent… a nuclear catastrophe?”
CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE
