Crimea has become a hot spot in Russia’s war in Ukraine since it plays a crucial role in the plans of Ukraine’s leaders to restore their country’s territorial integrity. This discussion will provide context for a better understanding of the situation in Crimea, and insights into its military and regional security implications.
About the speakers
Ivan (John) Jaworsky is Professor Emeritus, Department of Political Science, University of Waterloo (retired in 2018). His research interests include dissent and its legacies in the Soviet Union and its successor states, regional issues and inter-ethnic relations in Ukraine, civil-military relations in Ukraine, and the politics of ethnicity in Canada. Between 2000 and 2010 he was a research associate with the “Building Democracy in Ukraine” and “Democratic Education in Ukraine” projects (Queen’s University). Beginning in 1997 and prior to 2013 Prof. Jaworsky made numerous trips to Crimea. He is the author of The Military-Strategic Significance of Recent Developments in Ukraine (1993), Ukraine: Stability and Instability (1995), and several articles. He also prepared, for publication, the memoirs of Ukraine’s first minister of defence, Kostiantyn Morozov (Above and Beyond, 2000), and of the political prisoner Danylo Shumuk (Life Sentence, 1984).
Alexander Lanoszka is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo. He is also Associate Fellow at the UK-based Council on Geostrategy, Senior Fellow at the Ottawa-based Macdonald-Laurier Institute, and a visiting professor at the College of Europe in Natolin, Poland. His research addresses alliance politics and military strategy, with a focus on East Central Europe. He has published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as International Security, International Affairs, and Security Studies. He has also co-written policy monographs on Baltic security and Taiwanese defence strategy. His books include Atomic Assurance: The Alliance Politics of Nuclear Proliferation (Cornell, 2018) and Military Alliances in the Twenty-First Century (Polity, 2022). He received his PhD from Princeton University.
Moderated by Ann Fitz-Gerald, Director, Balsillie School.
