In Solidarity With Ukraine

In Solidarity With Ukraine

In Solidarity With Ukraine

Together with the rest of the world, the University anxiously monitors the Russian invasion of Ukraine as it rages. Faculty, staff, and students apply their academic expertise to analyze the unfathomable and open their hearts to the Ukrainian people.
Together with the rest of the world, the University anxiously monitors the Russian invasion of Ukraine as it rages. Faculty, staff, and students apply their academic expertise to analyze the unfathomable and open their hearts to the Ukrainian people.
by MICHAEL R. MALONE

PRESIDENT JULIO FRENK EXPRESSED THE UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY’S SENSE OF TRAGEDY AND DISTRESS—AND ITS COMMITMENT TO STAND IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE UKRAINIAN PEOPLE—IN A MESSAGE SOON AFTER THE INVASION BEGAN. “The images of violence, news of lives lost, stories of citizens joining the army en masse to defend their country, and accounts of families fleeing their homes to find safety are disturbing,” Frenk stated. “War is frightening, especially given the cruelty, disinformation, and opportunism exhibited by an unprovoked aggressor. Our hearts are heavy for Ukrainians, and we are hopeful that a return to peace in this region is forthcoming.”

Even as the first news of the invasion circulated, Diana Khodan’s tennis teammates rallied around the junior from Ukraine. Next to the emblematic “U” on their uniforms, the players affixed yellow-and-blue ribbons when the team took the court against their Clemson opponent.

“When I saw my flag, the flag of Ukraine, I couldn’t really describe my feelings,” notes Khodan, who hails from Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine. “There is nothing more important than my country and what is going on there right now.”

Ukrainian students, such as senior Kateryna Ghandour, did their best to stay focused on their studies even as they worried for family and childhood friends scattered across Ukraine, some messaging frantically from bomb shelters.

“I have many friends saying they will not make it. One was even on the bathroom floor hiding while shooting was going on outside her apartment,” says Ghandour, an international relations major who fled her native Ukraine in 2014 as a teen with her parents when protests mounted.

In an ongoing series of articles published in News@TheU, University scholars scrutinized the invasion from multiple perspectives.

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

Ira Sheskin, professor of geography and sustainable development, as well as director of the Jewish Demography Project at the Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, and Haim Shaked, the center’s founding director, explored how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s leadership and pride in his Jewish cultural and religious roots have inspired support from Jews around the world.

Sociology professors Olena Antonaccio and Robert J. Johnson, with Anastasiia Timmer, Ph.D. ’20, surveyed more than 1,200 residents and 300 internally displaced persons in the Ukrainian cities of Lviv and Kharkiv three years after the conflicts with Russia that started in 2014 to analyze the impacts of war.

Policy experts Marcia Beck, a political science lecturer; Dina Moulioukova, Ph.D. ’17, an international relations lecturer; and Antonaccio, a Ukraine native, analyzed the Russian president’s motivations for invading a neighboring country with deep, long-standing linkages.

June Teufel Dreyer, political science professor and a veteran China scholar, and Joaquín Roy, international studies professor and director of the European Union Center of Excellence, assessed China’s role in the conflict and U.S. intelligence attempts to sway the Asian powerhouse.

Pablo Rueda-Saiz, an associate professor in the School of Law, outlined the legal parameters of war crimes and the complexities of gathering such evidence in an article that assessed whether Russia has committed war crimes during the invasion.

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

Photo courtesy of Associated Press

Separately, Rueda-Saiz and policy expert Roy detailed how Putin’s invasion appears to have generated what the Russian president least wanted—unified European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliances and a long-term scenario that portends costly consequences for Russia.

Caleb Everett, professor of anthropology and senior associate dean for academic affairs, and Moulioukova examined the meanings and emotions evoked by symbols such as the letter “Z”—which has appeared in Russia as an emblem of support for the invasion of Ukraine.

Karin Wilkins, dean of the School of Communication, and Heidi Carr, an assistant professor of professional practice, assessed the use of new technologies that have increased access for everyone to stories, images, and videos chronicling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the resulting destruction and misery.

The two highlighted the immediacy and importance of social media produced through online platforms.

“Our access through digital media allows us to witness the violence and resistance experienced by people around the world,” notes Wilkins, an expert on global media. “We are more connected as a global community than ever before.”