During the chaos and aftermath of World War II, Ukraine and Russia fought a bitter civil war, leaving thousands of people, mostly innocent civilians, dead. The current conflict in eastern Ukraine is one of the contemporary echoes of this unfinished past, with an unexpected Australian note given the downing of MH17. To provide context about the historical and contemporary forces driving this conflict, particularly President Putin’s logic to persevere in his actions against Ukraine in the face of wide spread condemnation, Dr. Filip Slaveski will address the Institute on the topic of intentions of Putin’s Russia.

Dr. Filip Slaveski is a current postdoctoral research fellow at the Alfred Deakin Research Institute. He received his PhD in History from the University of Melbourne in 2010 and taught Russian and Soviet history there for a number of years.

AIIA Victoria 15th of October 2014