Mariana Budjeryn reflects on the tenth anniversary of her native Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity.

Mariana Budjeryn writes: War never stops at the border, especially on a continent like Europe. The European Union absorbed millions of Ukrainian war refugees and poured billions of euros into Ukraine's defenses and economic survival. The war permanently reshaped Europe: its demographics, political economy, and energy architecture are shifting in ways that will have irreversible long-term consequences. All of this is because in a very real sense Ukraine already is inextricably woven into the fabric of Europe: Ukraine’s pain is Europe’s pain and Ukraine’s gain will inevitably be Europe's gain, too.

Mariana Budjeryn responds to Stephen Walt's September 22, 2023, commentary, “The Morality of Ukraine’s War is Very Murky,” in Foreign Policy.  She argues that it is up to Ukrainians to determine when to end it and how to relate their costs to their stakes.

Tragedy is a word used ubiquitously by Ukraine empathizers discussing the horrors of the war in Ukraine. But, it turns out, the word tragedy is also popular with autocrats who are responsible for bringing those events about — but have no intention of admitting their responsibility.

After viewing the movie Oppenheimer, Matthew Bunn, John P. Holdren, Mariana Budjeryn, Matthew J. Parent, Calder Walton, Sylvia Mishra, and Julie George offer their thoughts on its relevance to the world today. 

This was my second journey to Ukraine since the great war started. The formal reason for the trip was to participate in the Kyiv Security Forum, an invitation I gladly accepted on its own merit but also for the opportunity to visit Ukraine, to bear witness to my country at war, and to see my mother in Lviv in western Ukraine.

[I]f the Russians are not restrained in causing a major humanitarian and ecological disaster by blowing up a dam — as Ukrainian and Western leaders contend and is a war crime under the Geneva Convention — what else are they capable of? Would they cause a similar or worse calamity if the Ukrainian counteroffensive forces them to retreat from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant? After all, the Russian military reportedly mined the perimeter of the plant where tons of nuclear material is stored.

As the international community ponders these prospects, the ghost of the Chernobyl catastrophe, the world’s worst nuclear accident that in 1986 covered swaths of Ukraine and Europe in radioactive fallout, returns to haunt. The parallels are uncanny: Chernobyl, the Kakhovka dam destruction, and the potential disaster at Zaporizhzhia all expose the lies of the governments in Moscow and their callous indifference toward massive and needless human suffering.

Mariana Budjeryn's Inheriting the Bomb tells the story of how Ukraine came into possession of the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal—larger than the combined stockpiles of China, France, and the United Kingdom at the time—and decided to disarm peacefully a few years later. Ukraine's denuclearization was far from a straightforward process. After initially renouncing nuclear weapons, Ukrainian officials sought recognition that their newly independent country was a rightful heir to part of the Soviet cache, deserving of equal treatment, financial compensation, and pledges that disarmament would not endanger Ukraine's security. 

Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, Senior Research Associate, Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center:

The announcement of Russia’s decision to deploy nuclear weapons to Belarus is the continuation of Russia’s tactic to use nuclear saber-rattling to induce nuclear anxieties in the West. In terms of military utility, Russian nuclear deployments to Belarus don’t change anything. Russia has plenty of bases, delivery systems and nuclear weapons deployed on its own territory, some of them very close to the Ukrainian border, that could serve the same mission as anything deployed to Belarus. So the move is purely political.  

Dr. Stephen Herzog, Senior Researcher, ETH Zurich, Center for Security Studies:

Putin's statement about moving Russian tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus is, of course, concerning. The forward deployment of nuclear weapons to regions close to conflict zones increases risks of escalation, nuclear weapons use, and misperception. Although, there is no evidence yet that the Kremlin has moved any of its arsenal to Belarus. But I expect to see reports from open-source intelligence analysts in the near- to medium-term future tracking any potential movement of warheads from Russia to Belarus.

Belfer Communications Fellow Ada Ezeokoli interviewed Dr. Budjeryn on her perspectives regarding the Russian-Ukraine conflict one year on, and her thoughts on the year to come.