One year into Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine, the Harriman Institute continues to stand with Ukraine and is committed to amplifying Ukrainian voices, culture, and heritage on campus and beyond. We have commemorated this grim anniversary with Ukrainian Film Club’s screening of war shorts, Dispatches from the Front Lines of Russian War Against Ukraine, and by hosting Distinguished Harriman Guest Speaker Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, who discussed Russian coercion strategy with professors Kimberly Marten and Peter Clement. Adamsky’s second talk, moderated by Harriman Institute Director, Valentina Izmirlieva, focused on the Russian Orthodox Church’s involvement in the Kremlin’s war effort. This evening, we will also hear from Azovstal defender Lieutenant Illia Samoilenko, who was the deputy commander of the National Guards of Azov.

Earlier this month, we released the latest episode of Voices of Ukraine, our narrative podcast that launched during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion. The episode tells the story of Tanya Kotelnykova, a Ukrainian student in Columbia’s program for Human Rights Studies who was displaced from her hometown Horlivka by Russia’s initial occupation of Donbas in 2014 and again from Kyiv in 2022.

Harriman faculty Jason Bordoff, Peter Clement, Elise Giuliano, Kimberly Marten, and Stephen Sestanovich also weighed in about the current invasion for SIPA’s Faculty Spotlight on the subject.

Pictured: A sunflower in front of Columbia’s Alma Mater at a vigil marking one year of the full-scale war in Ukraine. Organized by Columbia University’s Ukrainian Club. Photograph by Aleksandra Turek.