News & Announcements

Marking one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Belfer Center this week hosted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister for a discussion of the war and its significance for Ukraine and the world. In this special feature, we include video from Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba’s conversation with the Center’s Eric Rosenbach and Paula Dobriansky. We also include a report card on the war from Graham Allison and Kate Davidson, a policy brief from the Sexual Violence in Conflict project, interviews that highlight perspectives from the people of Ukraine and Russia, and new insights and perspectives from a range of experts on how the war is impacting global order as well as regions and people around the globe.

The Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School hosted a virtual conversation with Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba Wednesday (Feb. 22) to discuss the war in Ukraine as it reaches a full year since Russia's invasion. 

Today marks three months since Russia invaded Ukraine. For many Ukrainians, that milestone is sinking in. "Now there is a certain plateauing, there's a certain leveling out. On the one hand, you know, the war has entered our everyday reality," Mariana Budjeryn says. "And on the other hand, you're battling the instinct to normalize it." As the war grinds on, how do Ukrainians see things?

The Danish Minister of Climate, Energy, and Utilities expressed his hope that the tragic war in Ukraine will help accelerate the clean energy transformation by weaning Europe off Russian gas during a Virtual Forum (view recording here) last Friday (April 8). The event was hosted by the Harvard Project on Climate Agreements (HPCA) and moderated by Robert Stavins, HPCA Director and A.J. Meyer Professor of Energy and Economic Development. 

“The risks of nuclear war are growing, but they still remain quite low,” Stephen Herzog tells the Tehran Times. For example, Herzog says, “Cold War examples show that some NATO or Russian troop deaths, or aircraft losses, will not result in a ‘Moscow-for-Washington’ strategic nuclear exchange.” While the Ukraine war is going on, some political observers warn about the expansion of war to other countries and a perilous confrontation between Russia and NATO.

“This has quickly become a conflict involving NATO. Western countries are providing weapons and intelligence to help Ukraine resist the Russian military,” Herzog, also an associate of Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom, notes.

As Russia's war on Ukraine continues and much of the world distances itself from Putin's violent attack on a democratic country, China's President Xi embraces Putin and his actions—a complete reversal of what former President Richard Nixon engineered with China's Chairman Mao 50 years ago.

In The Great Wager, a five-part documentary-style podcast, Belfer Center Fellow and China correspondent and bureau chief in Beijing for The New York Times from 2012 to 2019, joins with WBUR “Here and Now” host Scott Tong to peel back the curtain on Nixon’s historic trip to China in February 1972. They provide details about what happened—off-the-books meetings, divulged military secrets, spies, subterfuge, and a never-before reported secret visit to the CIA headquarters where the Chinese were shown maps of where spy stations would be located in China. 

NPR's Leila Fadel talks Mariana Budjeryn, a Ukrainian and a nuclear expert at Harvard's Belfer Center, about the dangers of Russia seizing control of Ukraine's nuclear power plants.

Mariana Budjeryn, Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, discusses the risks of Russian attacks near nuclear facilities in Ukraine on CNN Newsroom Live, March 6, 2022.

Heather Williams, a nuclear expert at King’s College London and visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, said it was “totally ambiguous” but in keeping with a leader who has a history of being a “nuclear bully”. “It is classic Putin, creating ambiguity and uncertainty,” Williams said. “Putin is so good at that because he knows that it keeps people on edge.”

Mariana Budjeryn, Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom, shares details of Russia's shelling of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine on CNN Newsroom.