Julia Ioffe

A group of Cornell and outside experts including Russian-American journalist Julia Ioffe will explore the crisis in Ukraine at a panel discussion, “Ukraine, Putin and the New Cold War,” March 14 at 4:30 p.m. in Uris Auditorium. The event is free and open to the public.

Topics will include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s motivations in Ukraine, how the United States should respond and whether this is the beginning of a new Cold War.

Ioffe, the keynote speaker, is a senior editor at The New Republic. She covered the Sochi Olympic Games and the protests in Kiev extensively; her New Republic cover story “The Loneliness of Vladimir Putin” provided critical insight into Putin’s mindset and Russian politics.

A 2005 graduate of Princeton, Ioffe was previously a Moscow-based correspondent for The New Yorker and Foreign Policy. Recognized as one of the leading reporters on Russia and Ukraine, she is a frequent guest on CNN and MSNBC.

The panel discussion will feature:

• Fredrik Logevall, vice provost for international affairs and director of the Mario Eiunadi Center for International Studies at Cornell. The Pulitzer Prize-winning historian is an expert on U.S. foreign policy and will provide insight into America’s motivation in the Ukraine situation. He is the author of “Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America's Vietnam” (2012) and “Choosing War: The Lost Chance for Peace and the Escalation of War in Vietnam” (2001).
• Kateryna Pishchikova, a visiting scholar at the Cornell Institute for European Studies and an associate fellow at FRIDE, a think tank based in Madrid and Brussels focused on global action and analysis of international relations. She is an expert on democratization, particularly in Europe.
• Len Surzhko-Harned, assistant professor of political science at Mercyhurst University and an expert in nationalism, ethnic conflict and political behavior in post-communist states.

The event will be moderated by professor of government Matthew Evangelista, whose research focuses on international affairs and Russia. He is the author of numerous books including “Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War.”

The panel is presented by the Cornell Democrats and the Cornell International Affairs Forum, and co-sponsored with the Einaudi Center, the Departments of Government, Sociology and Policy Analysis and Management, the Cornell University Program Board, the Cornell Republicans, WVBR radio and cornellradio.com.