On March 31st, the first round of Ukraine’s presidential election takes place. The unpredictable and scandal-rich election occurs at a critical time. Five years after the Euromaidan Revolution, Ukraine’s key structural problems remain unresolved, while the conflict with Russia persists. The result of the election will have a profound impact on the country’s internal developments and its relations with the West. It will also affect the outcome of the forthcoming parliamentary elections, which will take place in October. The purpose of the seminar is to discuss the presidential campaign and the election’s implications for the future of the country. The event will focus on both regional and general aspects of Ukraine’s presidential race and offer an external analytical perspective.
Puhujat
Ryhor Nizhnikau is a Senior Research Fellow in the EU’s Eastern
Neighbourhood and Russia programme at FIIA. He works on Russia’s and
EU’s policies towards Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus as well as domestic
developments in these countries. His current research focus includes the
study of Ukraine’s reforms after the Euromaidan Revolution. He received his
PhD from Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies, University of Tartu. His
recent publications include EU Induced Institutional Change in Post-Soviet
Space: Promoting Reforms in Moldova and Ukraine (Routledge, 2018).
Andrew Wilson is a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign
Relations. His topics of focus include Ukraine, comparative politics of
democratisation in the post-Soviet states, and political technology. Wilson
is Professor in Ukrainian Studies at University College London. He has worked
extensively on the comparative politics of the post-Soviet states since 1990. His
book Ukraine Crisis: What the West Needs to Know was published by Yale in 2014.
He is currently working on a book on “The Globalisation of Political Technology”.
Volodymyr Dubovyk is an Associate Professor at the Department of
International Relations and Director of the Center for International Studies at
Odessa I. I. Mechnikov National University (Ukraine). His areas of expertise
include Ukraine, Transatlantic Relations, the U.S., and Black Sea security.
Dubovyk has conducted research at the Woodrow Wilson International
Center for Scholars (1997, 2006-2007), at the Center for International and
Security Studies at the University of Maryland (2002), taught at the University
of Washington (Seattle) in 2013 and at St. Edwards university/University of
Texas (Austin) in 2016-17. He is the co-author of Ukraine and European Security
(Macmillan, 1999) and has published numerous articles on US-Ukraine
relations, regional and international security, and Ukraine’s foreign policy.